rara avis

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English[edit]

WOTD – 5 January 2023

Etymology[edit]

Learned borrowing from Latin rāra avis (“rare bird”). The synonym rare bird is attested earlier.[1] The term is a quotation from Satire VI (written late 1st century – early 2nd century B.C.E.) of the Roman poet Juvenal: “Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno [a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan]!”.[2]

The plural form rarae aves is a learned borrowing from Latin rārae avēs.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

rara avis (plural rara avises or rarae aves or (obsolete) raræ aves)

  1. A rare species or type of bird.
    • 1825, Henrietta Rouviere Mosse, chapter III, in A Father’s Love and a Woman’s Friendship; or, The Widow and Her Daughters. […], volume V, London: […] [J. Darling] for A. K. Newman and Co. […], →OCLC, pages 105–106:
      Ramsay flung open the door. "Lord Fred—damn it we are all in the lurch!", he exclaimed, […] "my rara avises have taken wing and flown off." / "What were they actually, Ramsay?" asked Newbank. / "Two black swans," replied he—"the finest creatures ever were beheld, except another of the kind that is in company with them, though I understand there is more of the breed."
    • 1997, Cristina García, “Rarae Aves”, in The Agüero Sisters, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 153:
      Over the next eight months, with practically no funding except for what I could borrow, with an afflicted conscience, from my mother, I scoured the remotest corners of Cuba for rarae aves. I hitchhiked, jumped freight trains, cajoled guajiros into lending me their mules, slept in caves or beneath the canopies of immense ceiba trees. Cuba's landscape had changed so dramatically in only a decade that even the once populous birds that Dr. Forrest and I had collected were nowhere to be found, or found, at most, as singletons or in minuscule bands.
  2. (figuratively) A rare or unique, and thus outstanding or unusual, person or thing; a rare bird.
    Synonyms: rarity; see also Thesaurus:rarity
    That Parsons girl is quite the rara avis if you ask me.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, “A Wonderful Long Chapter Concerning the Marvellous; Being Much the Longest of All Our Introductory Chapters”, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VIII, page 150:
      And yet I knovv a Man vvho is all I have here deſcribed. But a ſingle Inſtance (and I really knovv not ſuch another) is not ſufficient to juſtify us, […] Such Raræ Aves ſhould be remitted to the Epitaph-VVriter, or to ſome Poet, vvho may condeſcend to hitch him in a Diſtich, or to ſlide him into a Rhime vvith an Air of Careleſneſs and Neglect, vvithout giving any Offence to the Reader.
    • 1835, F[rederick] W[illiam] N[aylor] Bailey, “Part I. The Spunging House.”, in Scenes and Stories by a Clergyman in Debt. […], volume I, London: A. H. Baily and Co., […], →OCLC, page 12:
      Few attorneys are well acquainted with the etiquette of good society; those among the fraternity are raræ aves, who venture on the esquire or afford sealing-wax; hence there is usually a characteristic vulgarity about "a lawyer's letter," which identifies it at once.
    • 1838, J[oel] S[amuel] Polack, chapter IX, in New Zealand: Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures during a Residence in that Country between the Years 1831 and 1837. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 268–269:
      One [Maori] man stated his surprise on seeing a boat land with seamen, who had black legs and white bodies; others with bright red bodies, and white legs speckled with white spots, according to the dresses they had on, which was supposed to form part of the body; but their fear was at its height on seeing these rara avises walk about the beech,[sic – meaning beach?] on which numbers of the natives ran up the hills, while others climbed the trees.
    • [1849 March 17, Edgar Allan Poe, “Hop-Frog”, in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: […], volumes II (Poems and Miscellanies), New York, N.Y.: J. S. Redfield, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 455:
      Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is a rara avis in terris [rare bird on earth].]
    • 1882, [Jane Goodwin Austin], “John”, in The Desmond Hundred (Round-Robin Series), Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC, page 46:
      […] Nazareth was one of those raræ aves of her sex, a self-contained, self-companioning woman, finding her best sympathizer, her best confidante, her most satisfactory friend, in Nazareth Pitcher; for Nazareth Sampson was non-existent as yet, except in name.
    • 1892 December 3, W[illia]m Heinemann, “The Hardships of Publishing”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama, number 3397, London: John C. Francis, →OCLC, page 780, column 1:
      We are besides, for various reasons, compelled to employ higher-class labour than we could when the business was less complex, before there were serial issues, colonial and continental libraries, when translations were raræ aves, and when a casual ten-pound note was the Ultima Thule of our ambitions from America, &c.
    • 1914 September 26, R. B., “Theaters”, in Samuel Travers Clover, editor, The Graphic, volume XLIV, number 17, Los Angeles, Calif.: Graphic Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 8, column 1:
      The secret is—Frank Cravens.[sic – meaning Frank Craven] He is that rarest of rarae aves—the author-actor.
    • 1919 October 20, Virginia Woolf, chapter XII, in Night and Day, London: Duckworth and Company […], →OCLC, page 154:
      "But I do read De Quincey," Ralph protested, "more than Belloc and Chesterton, anyhow." / "Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Cosham, with a gesture of surprise and relief mingled. "You are, then, a rara avis in your generation. I am delighted to meet any one who reads De Quincey."
    • 1940, Alvin F[ay] Harlow, Paper Chase: The Amenities of Stamp Collecting, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 116:
      RARAE AVES OF THE STREET / There were colorful characters which moved through the Nassau Street atmosphere of the past and which have become legendary; Ginnity, the stamp finder of forty years ago, for example.
    • 1944 September 2, Harold C[harles] Gardiner, “Christian Thought and the Past”, in In All Conscience: Reflections on Books and Culture, Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, Doubleday & Company, published 1959, →LCCN, →OCLC, part 1 (Books in Our Culture), page 70:
      However that may be, the non-Catholic author who writes novels about Christ without betraying how the poison of modern Protestant theology has seeped down into literature is the rarest of rarae aves.
    • 1945 November and December, H. C. Casserley, “Random Reflections on British Locomotive Types—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 320:
      Again the tendency is very largely to use inside cylinders, but it is not quite so marked as in the case of tender engines; the 0-6-0 tank with outside cylinders is not quite the rara avis that the 0-6-0 tender has been.
    • 2001 May 12, Robert Potts, “The poet at play”, in The Guardian‎[1], →ISSN:
      As Muldoon himself recalls the encounter, his teacher, Jerry Hicks, introduced him to Heaney with the words, "This is the boy who'll be even better than you", which, as Muldoon says, "was inappropriate and very embarrassing". Hicks then added in a stage whisper: "Rara avis."
    • 2008, Kate De Goldi, “Tuesday, June 6”, in The 10pm Question, Dunedin, New Zealand: Longacre Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 251:
      ‘Rara avis,’ she said. ‘That’s what you are Frankie. A rara avis.’ She had pushed him out into the night then, to Uncle George and the waiting car.
    • 2017, Mercedes Lackey, chapter 2, in A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters; 13; DAW Book Collectors; no. 1758), New York, N.Y.: DAW Books, →ISBN:
      Alf was that rarest of rarae aves of the underclass. He knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was to be comfortable. He wanted to not have to work too hard for that comfort.

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “rara avis, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “rara avis, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Compare Juvenal (1836) “Satira VI. Ad Ursidium Posthumum, de Mulieribus.”, in P[eter] Austin Nuttall, transl., D. Jubii Juvenalis Satiræ: With a Linear Verbal Translation Accompanying the Text; […], new edition, London: […] Nichols and Son, […]; and sold by Longman and Co. […], →OCLC, page 55, line 164.

Further reading[edit]

Italian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from Latin rāra avis (“rare bird”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈra.ra ˈa.vis/
  • Hyphenation: rà‧ra‧à‧vis

Noun[edit]

rara avis f (uncountable)

  1. rara avis
    Synonym: mosca bianca

Further reading[edit]

  • rara avis in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
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