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Mere vs Rare - What's the difference?

mere | rare |

As a noun mere

is fear, awe.

As an adjective rare is

(cooking|particularly meats) cooked very lightly, so the meat is still red (in the case of steak or beef in the general sense) or rare can be very uncommon; scarce or rare can be (obsolete) early.

As a verb rare is

(us|intransitive) to rear, rise up, start backwards.

mere

English

(wikipedia mere)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) mere, from (etyl) .

Alternative forms

* (l), (l), (l)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) the sea
  • (dialectal, or, literary) a pool; a small lake or pond; marsh
    • (Drayton)
    (Tennyson)
  • * 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber & Faber 2005, p. 194:
    • Lok got to his feet and wandered along by the marshes towards the mere where Fa had disappeared.
    Derived terms
    * mereswine * mermaid * merman * merfolk

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl), from (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l), (l), (l)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.ix:
    • The Troian Brute'' did first that Citie found, / And ''Hygate'' made the meare thereof by West, / And ''Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.

    Verb

    (mer)
  • (obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
  • (obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.

    • Etymology 3

    From (etyl), from (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) famous.

    • Etymology 4

    From (etyl) meer, from (etyl) mier, from (etyl) merus. Perhaps influenced by (etyl) , or conflated with Etymology 3.

    Adjective

    (er)
  • (label) Pure, unalloyed .
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.8:
    • So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion.
  • * , I.56:
    • Meere .
  • (label) Nothing less than; complete, downright .
  • * , II.3.7:
    • If every man might have what he wouldwe should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.
  • Just, only; no more than , pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.
  • *
    • Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor;.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)
    • , chapter=2, title= Internal Combustion , passage=More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
    • , author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106 , magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Pixels or Perish , passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}
    Derived terms
    * merely

    Etymology 5

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a Maori war-club

    • Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    rare

    English

    Etymology 1

    From a dialectal variant of rear, from (etyl) rere, from (etyl) . More at (l).

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l) (UK)

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • (cooking, particularly meats) Cooked very lightly, so the meat is still red (in the case of steak or beef in the general sense).
  • * Dryden
    • New-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care / Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare .
    Synonyms
    * (cooked very lightly) sanguinary
    Antonyms
    * (cooked very lightly) well done
    Derived terms
    * medium-rare

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) rare, from (etyl) rare, .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Very uncommon; scarce.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= David Van Tassel], [http://www.americanscientist.org/authors/detail/lee-dehaan Lee DeHaan
    • , title= Wild Plants to the Rescue , volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Plant breeding is always a numbers game.
  • (label) Thin; of low density.
    • Synonyms
    * (very uncommon) scarce, selcouth, seld, seldsome, selly, geason, uncommon
    Antonyms
    * (very uncommon) common
    Derived terms
    * rare bird * rare earth mineral
    Related terms
    * rarity

    Etymology 3

    Variant of rear .

    Verb

    (rar)
  • (US) To rear, rise up, start backwards.
  • * 2006 , Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day , Vintage 2007, p. 328:
    • Frank pretended to rare back as if bedazzled, shielding his eyes with a forearm.
  • (US) To rear, bring up, raise.
    • Usage notes
    * (rft-sense) Principal current, non-literary use is of the present participle raring' with a verb in "'''raring''' to". The principal verb in that construction is ''go''. Thus, '''''raring''' to go'' ("eager (to start something)") is the expression in which '''''rare is most often encountered as a verb.

    Etymology 4

    Compare rather, rath.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) early
  • * Chapman
    • Rude mechanicals that rare and late / Work in the market place.

    Anagrams

    * ----