Meaning
A rare or exceptional person or thing; a curiosity or rarity. It is a literary, faintly learned phrase, often italicized as a foreignism, and is applied to everything from a genuinely honest appraisal to an unusually quiet blockbuster summer. The correct Latin plural, rarae aves, occasionally appears in elevated prose. Bookish and often gently ironic; commonly italicized as an unparsed Latin tag. Regional use: General English (borrowed from Latin); literary.
Origin
Latin for 'rare bird', from a line in Juvenal's Satire VI describing a perfect wife as 'rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno' - a bird as rare on earth and as like a black swan - the black swan being a Roman byword for the impossible, since all the swans Juvenal's world knew were white. The phrase crossed into English in the early 1600s: Merriam-Webster dates the first known use to 1607, and the OED's earliest citation, as reported by Grammarphobia, is George Wilkins's 1607 play The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, where it marks an exceptional person; by the mid-17th century it was being used of rare things and occurrences as well. Actual black swans were finally recorded in Australia at the end of the 17th century, quietly converting the emblem of impossibility into one of mere rarity.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- rarae aves
- rare avis
Usage Examples
- An honest appraisal of one's own work is a rara avis in any profession.
- The auction's rara avis was a complete first edition signed by the author herself.
- Critics called the quiet, patient thriller a rara avis in a summer of sequels.