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Paucity vs Rare - What's the difference?

paucity | rare |

As a noun paucity

is fewness in number; too few.

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.

paucity

English

Noun

  • Fewness in number; too few.
  • * 1915 , , The Golden Slipper , problem 7:
    • But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves.
  • * 2006 , Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, " Uncle Sam Wants You," Time , 13 July:
    • Your tax refund might be late, owing to a paucity of number crunchers.
  • A smallness in size or amount that is insufficient; meagerness, dearth.
  • * 1898 , , "At the Appetite-Cure":
    • Now came shipwrecks and life in open boats, with the usual paucity of food.
  • * 1915 , , Michael O'Halloran , ch. 12:
    • Here is where the paucity of our language is made manifest.

    Synonyms

    * dearth, scantiness, scarcity

    Related terms

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

    External links

    * * *

    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

    * ----