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seldom. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
seldom, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
seldom in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
seldom you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From late Middle English seldom, alteration of earlier selden, from Old English seldan (“seldom”), from Proto-Germanic *seldanē. Cognate with Saterland Frisian säilden (“seldom”), West Frisian selden, komselden (“rare, seldom”), Dutch zelden, German selten, Danish sjælden, Norwegian sjelden, Swedish sällan, Faroese sjáldan, Icelandic sjaldan. More at seld and selly.
Pronunciation
Adverb
seldom (comparative more seldom or seldomer, superlative most seldom or seldomest)
- Infrequently, rarely.
- Synonyms: barely, hardly, rarely, scarcely, infrequently, seldomly; see also Thesaurus:rarely
- Antonyms: often, frequently; see also Thesaurus:often
They seldom come here now.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed.
1984, 20:05 from the start, in Dune (Science Fiction), →OCLC:I'll miss the sea. But a person needs new experiences. They draw something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change, something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
2013 April 9, Andrei Lankov, “Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff.”, in New York Times:People who talk about an imminent possibility of war seldom pose this question: What would North Korea’s leadership get from unleashing a war that they are likely to lose in weeks, if not days?
2013 June 1, “End of the peer show”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 71:Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend.
Usage notes
- It is grammatically a negative word. It therefore collocates with ever rather than never. Compare he seldom ever plays tennis with he almost never plays tennis.
- The form seldomly, derived from the (now archaic) adjectival use, exists, but has not gained widespread acceptance.
Derived terms
Translations
infrequently, rarely
- Afrikaans: selde (af)
- Albanian: rrallë (sq)
- Arabic: نَادِرًا (nādiran)
- Armenian: հազվադեպ (hy) (hazvadep)
- Asturian: raramente
- Azerbaijani: az (az), gec-gec
- Basque: gutxitan
- Belarusian: рэ́дка (rédka)
- Bengali: কদাপি (bn) (kodapi)
- Bulgarian: ря́дко (bg) (rjádko)
- Burmese: ဆယ်ခါတစ်ခါ (my) (hcaihkatachka), ဖြစ်ခေါင့်ဖြစ်ခဲ (my) (hprachkaung.hprachkai:)
- Catalan: rarament (ca)
- Cebuano: talagsa
- Chinese:
- Cantonese: 很少 (han2 siu2), (colloquial) 好少 (hou2 siu2)
- Mandarin: 很少 (hěnshǎo), 伄儅 / 伄𰁸 (zh) (diàodāng)
- Czech: zřídka (cs)
- Danish: sjældent
- Dutch: zelden (nl)
- Esperanto: malofte
- Estonian: harva
- Faroese: sjáldan
- Finnish: harvoin (fi)
- French: rarement (fr)
- Georgian: იშვიათად (išviatad)
- German: selten (de)
- Greek: σπάνια (el) (spánia)
- Ancient Greek: σπανίως (spaníōs)
- Hebrew: לְעִתִּים רְחוֹקוֹת (le'eteym rekhokót)
- Hindi: कभी कभी (kabhī kabhī)
- Hungarian: ritkán (hu)
- Icelandic: sjaldan (is)
- Indonesian: jarang (id)
- Irish: go hannamh
- Italian: raramente (it), di rado
- Japanese: 稀に (ja) (まれに, mare ni), 滅多に…ない (ja) (めったに…ない, metta ni ... nai) (with negative verbs)
- Kannada: please add this translation if you can
- Kapampangan: malagad
- Kazakh: аз (kk) (az), сирек (sirek)
- Khmer: មិនសូវ (mɨn sǝv)
- Korean: 좀체로…않게 (jomchero…anke), 드물게 (deumulge)
- Kurdish:
- Central Kurdish: بەدەگمان (bedegman)
- Kyrgyz: аз (ky) (az)
- Lao: ບໍ່ສູ້ (bǭ sū)
- Latin: rārē, rārenter, rārō
- Latvian: reti
- Lithuanian: retai (lt), nedažnai
- Macedonian: ретко (retko)
- Malay: jarang (ms)
- Maltese: rari
- Mongolian: хааяа нэг (xaajaa neg)
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: sjelden (no)
- Nynorsk: sjeldan
- Ojibwe: wiikaa
- Persian: ندرت (fa) (nodrat), به ندرت (be nodrat)
- Polish: rzadko (pl)
- Portuguese: raramente (pt)
- Romanian: rar (ro), rareori (ro)
- Russian: ре́дко (ru) (rédko), и́зредка (ru) (ízredka)
- Scottish Gaelic: ainneamh
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: ретко, ријетко
- Roman: retko (sh), rijetko (sh)
- Slovak: zriedka (sk)
- Slovene: rédko (sl)
- Spanish: raramente (es), rara vez
- Swahili: nadra (sw)
- Swedish: sällan (sv)
- Tagalog: bihira
- Tajik: нудратан (nudratan), кушод-кушод (kušod-kušod)
- Tatar: аз (tt) (az), сирәк (tt) (siräk)
- Thai: ไม่บ่อย (mâi-bɔ̀i)
- Turkish: az (tr), nadiren (tr)
- Turkmen: az (tk)
- Ukrainian: рі́дко (rídko), зрі́дка (zrídka)
- Urdu: کبھی کبھی (kabhī kabhī)
- Uzbek: oz (uz)
- Vietnamese: ít khi (vi)
- Volapük: selediko, seledo
- Welsh: anfynych (cy)
- Yiddish: זעלטן (zeltn)
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Adjective
seldom (comparative more seldom or seldomer, superlative most seldom or seldomest)
- (archaic) Rare; infrequent.
- Synonyms: geason, uncommon; see also Thesaurus:rare
1651, Jer Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. , 2nd edition, London: Francis Ashe , →OCLC:a suppressed and seldom anger
1850, Vignaud Pamphlets: Sir Isaac Newton, page 513:He was very curious in his garden, which was never out of order; in which he would at seldom times take a short walk or two, not enduring to see a weed in it.
Derived terms
Translations
Anagrams
Middle English
Etymology 1
From Old English seldan.
Adverb
seldom
- Alternative form of selden (“seldom”)
Etymology 2
From Old English selden.
Adjective
seldom
- Alternative form of selden (“uncommon”)