{"id":19660,"date":"2020-08-14T13:37:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T13:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19660"},"modified":"2020-08-14T13:37:32","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T13:37:32","slug":"rare-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19660","title":{"rendered":"Rare Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a rare word in Dutch &#8211; <strong>raar<\/strong> [ra\u02d0r] &#8211; which is cognate with the English word <strong>rare<\/strong>, but  means weird, strange, funny, odd or unusual.<\/p>\n<p>It comes from the Middle Dutch <em>rare<\/em> (rare, unusual), from the Latin <em>r\u0101rus<\/em> (scattered, seldom, few, uncommon, thin, loose), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*h\u2081r\u0325h\u2081r\u00f3s<\/em>, from <em>*h\u2081reh\u2081-<\/em> (to separate) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/raar\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Here are some examples of how it\u2019s used:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ik heb een raar telefoontje gehad = I got a weird phone call<\/li>\n<li>Want je doet een beetje raar = Because you&#8217;ve been acting a little weird<\/li>\n<li>Dit is vast gewoon een raar misverstand = I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s just a weird misunderstanding<\/li>\n<li>M&#8217;n leven is nu nogal raar = My life is kind of, like, a little weird right now<\/li>\n<li>Luister, dit gaat raar klinken &#8230; = Look, this is going to sound strange &#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/context.reverso.net\/translation\/dutch-english\/raar\">Reverso Context<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Dutch words for <strong>rare<\/strong> include <strong>zeldzaam<\/strong> [\u02c8z\u025blt.sa\u02d0m] (rare, scarce), which is cognate with the Engish words <strong>seldom<\/strong> and <strong>seldsome<\/strong> (rare, uncommon), and <strong>schaars<\/strong> [sxa\u02d0rs] (scarce, rare, sparse), which is cognate with the Engish word <strong>scarce<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/english-dutch\/rare\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The English word <strong>rare<\/strong> comes from the same root, via the Middle English <em>rare<\/em> [\u02c8ra\u02d0r(\u0259)\/\u02c8r\u025b\u02d0r(\u0259)] (airy, vacuous, porous, breathable, sparsely spread, uncommon, scare, small, little), and the Old French <em>rare\/rere<\/em> (rare, uncommon) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/rare#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Other descendants of the Latin word <em>r\u0101rus<\/em> include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Albanian: <strong>rrall\u00eb<\/strong> [ra\u02d0\u026b] = sparse, infrequent, rare, outstanding<\/li>\n<li>Catalan: <strong>rar<\/strong> [\u02c8rar] = rare, strange, odd, thin (of a gas)<\/li>\n<li>Danish: <strong>rar<\/strong> [\u0281\u0251\u02d0\u02c0] = pleasant, kind, nice<\/li>\n<li>Dutch: <strong>raar<\/strong> [ra\u02d0r] = weird, strange, funny, odd, unusual<\/li>\n<li>French: <strong>rare<\/strong> [\u0281\u0251\u0281] = rare, sparse, scarce<\/li>\n<li>German: <strong>rar<\/strong> [\u0281a\u02d0\u0281] = rare, scarce<\/li>\n<li>Spanish: <strong>raro<\/strong> [\u02c8ra\u027eo] = strange, odd, rare<\/li>\n<li>Swedish: <strong>rar<\/strong> = cute, sweet, loveable, rare<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So rare, and its relatives, are strangely funny, wiredly unusual, outstandingly odd, loveably cute, nicely sweet, sparsely scarce and oddly rare words, it seems.<\/p>\n<p>Now here&#8217;s a rare bird, a little bittern or <em>Ixobrychus minutus<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/147485441@N04\/35521517134\/in\/photolist-W7V4uA-2bNDPw3-24LLWfy-XjPzvm-SXXGeu-2cQTk3H-29xbSW7-215bkdJ-YwF2Dw-H53eWi-29v4LsU-22PLd2z-25oW23A-2ec4iSK-CsqNbd-2b7pspx-YATRG2-jg7Nmz-6TcZSQ-28oEVtL-Hhg2CK-jgkp2q-VUm8Nz-21amoC3-29Cpeii-URD9N7-RTq26V-2enSCk3-HEM7bn-21pW4YJ-25i2KSF-JZGa9p-Q8E5GU-23jZ7NN-26nVvAQ-FCQLxv-2ak5tcm-Lh2g7G-NixVxr-FCQYBa-GnHGFd-22EtpmC-GqVXx1-2cNr4CV-231Cw5D-ZH9pe1-PhzFcN-UMv5MT-22Aor5a-S1QakW\" title=\"Little Bittern\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4356\/35521517134_74a18cc17b_z.jpg\" alt=\"Little Bittern\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a rare word in Dutch &#8211; raar [ra\u02d0r] &#8211; which is cognate with the English word rare, but means weird, strange, funny, odd or unusual. It comes from the Middle Dutch rare (rare, unusual), from the Latin r\u0101rus (scattered, seldom, few, uncommon, thin, loose), from the Proto-Indo-European *h\u2081r\u0325h\u2081r\u00f3s, from *h\u2081reh\u2081- (to separate) [source]. Here [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,94,100,102,104,107,111,116,10,182,26,34,45,64,67,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albanian-shqip","category-catalan","category-danish","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-german","category-language","category-middle-dutch-dietsc-duutsch","category-middle-english","category-old-french","category-proto-indo-european","category-spanish","category-swedish","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19664,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19660\/revisions\/19664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}