uncommon
Americanadjective
-
not common; unusual; rare.
an uncommon word.
-
unusual in amount or degree; above the ordinary.
an uncommon amount of mail.
- Synonyms:
- extraordinary
-
exceptional; remarkable.
- Synonyms:
- outstanding
adjective
-
outside or beyond normal experience, conditions, etc; unusual
-
in excess of what is normal
an uncommon liking for honey
adverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of uncommon
Explanation
Anything uncommon is rare or unusual, like your uncommon last name, which all of your friends have trouble pronouncing. When you add the prefix un- to common, "occurring or done often," you get its opposite, uncommon. The word's earliest meaning was "not possessed in common," or not owned by everyone, from another meaning of common, "shared by the community." These days, people almost always mean "exceptional" or "not likely" when they describe something as uncommon: "It's uncommon for people to win the lottery, so don't waste your money!"
Vocabulary lists containing uncommon
Strange
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Strange
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Strange
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Scott said it isn’t uncommon to get calls from nervous clients, particularly new ones, on days when the market sells off as it did Thursday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026
Dr Lee Campbell from Cancer Research Wales said, although uncommon, there were about 100-115 cases of breast cancer in women under 40 each year in Wales.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
There is a Shire Archive, but knowledge of the world beyond is uncommon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
Sophie Hambleton, Professor of Pediatrics and Immunology at Newcastle University, explained that studying these uncommon conditions provided important clues about the mechanisms involved in more widespread forms of IBD.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2026
“There was something in the heat and drought,” the good doctor speculated, “which was uncommon, in their influence upon the human body.”
From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy
If this so-called thermodynamic effect were all there was to it, temperatures now considered unusually hot would become more typical and those regarded as uncommonly cold, uncommoner still.
From Economist ● Jul. 28, 2018
I should hope so," said the boy,—"the uncommoner the better.
From The Adventures of Captain Horn by Frank Richard Stockton
The commonest thing is quite as strange as the uncommonest, only habit blunts our sense.
From The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Tales from the German of Tieck by Ludwig Tieck
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
