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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
rarity
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
remain
▪ Rewarding as growth is for the companies that achieve it, it remains a rarity.
▪ Like their counterparts in classical music and rock such female jazz artists remain rarities.
▪ Female war artists, however, remained and remain a rarity.
▪ Although the United States boasts some twenty-five million hunters, game has remained a rarity in most homes.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The Go-Gos' latest album is packed with live versions, B-sides, and other rarities.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Although once a rarity, the alto flute is now frequently found in modern orchestras.
▪ Among wild creatures rarity is a relative condition, not always determined on the basis of actual numbers.
▪ And he was that greater rarity, a Moses without political ambition.
▪ Breadwinner wives who are the couple's sole earners are a rarity, wives are typically joint but secondary earners.
▪ Moreover, stage performances of opera had been a rarity during the war.
▪ That left him with one explanation for the rarity of polygamy in sparrows: The senior wives do not stand for it.
▪ That sheep dip is singularly disagreeable to a golden eagle is one reason for its rarity.
▪ This disease although now a rarity, does warrant a brief description.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rarity

Rarity \Rar"i*ty\ (r[a^]r"[i^]*t[y^]; 277), n.; pl. Rarities (r[a^]r"[i^]*t[i^]z). [L. raritas: cf. F. raret['e]. See Rare.]

  1. The quality or state of being rare; rareness; thinness; as, the rarity (contrasted with the density) of gases.

  2. That which is rare; an uncommon thing; a thing valued for its scarcity.

    I saw three rarities of different kinds, which pleased me more than any other shows in the place.
    --Addison.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
rarity

early 15c., "thinness;" 1550s, "fewness," from Middle French rarité or directly from Latin raritas "thinness, looseness of texture; fewness," from rarus (see rare (adj.1)). Sense of "a rare thing or event" is from 1590s.

Wiktionary
rarity

n. 1 A measure of the scarcity of an object. 2 (context chemistry of a gas English) Thinness; the property of having low density 3 (senseid en rare object)A rare object.

WordNet
rarity
  1. n. noteworthy scarcity [syn: rareness, infrequency]

  2. a rarified quality; "the tenuity of the upper atmosphere" [syn: tenuity, low density]

  3. something unusual -- perhaps worthy of collecting [syn: curio, curiosity, oddity, oddment, peculiarity]

Wikipedia
Rarity

Rarity may refer to:

Rarity (band)

Rarity is a Canadian post-hardcore band from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, formed in 2014. The band consists of lead vocalist Loeden Learn, guitarists Adam Clarke and Zachary Pasquale, and drummer Evan Woods. They signed with Rise Records and released their debut EP, Alive In Your Eyes in 2015. The band released their debut studio album, I Couldn't Be Weaker, in April 2016. The group has toured with multiple musical groups such as Silverstein, Vanna, Being As An Ocean, Emarosa, Coldrain, Cardinals Pride and Youth Decay.

Usage examples of "rarity".

Sianadh had hired a carriage and driver, which contraption was ogled by the neighbors when it stopped at the door, carriages being a rarity in Bergamot Street.

When Dana Gaynor, copartner of Rarities Unlimited, started in on him with a voice like an ice-tipped whip, he stood up straight and paid attention.

The rarity of eidetic memory, coupled with the fact that to possess such a capacity does not seem to make for much success in life, suggests that it may not be so beneficial a gift.

It is useless to deny the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so perfectly and with such exquisite humor all the fugacious and manifold emotions of the modern maiden and her lover.

On the contrary, were the generous friend or disinterested patriot to stand alone in the practice of beneficence, this would rather inhance his value in our eyes, and join the praise of rarity and novelty to his other more exalted merits.

Horton and Jols began filling the glasses as the knights eyed this rarity with enormous anticipation.

Quite pleased, Glencoe left Mance to his task and devoted his own efforts to displaying musical rarities.

The Grand Inquisitor was utterly overwhelmed by his volume of Pasquinades, a work so witty that it was constantly attributed to Erasmus, and so carefully destroyed that Heinsius gave a hundred gold pieces for the copy which Count Hohendorf afterwards placed among the imperial rarities at Vienna.

But Rafik had said Hafiz was a collector of rarities and had implied that he was not overburdened with scruples.

For two hours we fished unceasingly, but without bringing up any rarities.

Kashmir, Miss Mandeville, zough not, I am desolate to say, of great rarity.

From the other table advances Tommy Molto, the Homicide supervisor, who has elected to try this case, a rarity for him these 68 THE LAWS OF OUR FATHERS days.

Relkin and Mono were orphans, Manuel was not, a real rarity in the Dragon Corps.

The roof was hung with hams and polonies and sausages, there were barrels of pickled meats, stacks of fat round cheeses, cases of Hansa beer, cases of cognac, pyramids of canned truffles, asparagus tips, shrimps, mushrooms, olives in oil, and other rarities.

It was a rarity that the defense would not object to prosecutorial foot dragging.