rara avis

plural rara avises · plural rarae aves · obsolete plural raræ aves

1. A rare species or type of bird.

   2 more examples

   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."

   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

   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.

   1997, Cristina García, “Rarae Aves”, in The Agüero Sisters, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 153

2. figurativelyA rare or unique, and thus outstanding or unusual, person or thing; a rare bird.

   That Parsons girl is quite the rara avis if you ask me.

   5 more examples

   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.

   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

   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.

   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

   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.

   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

   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].

   [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

   […] 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.

   1882, [Jane Goodwin Austin], “John”, in The Desmond Hundred (Round-Robin Series), Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC, page 46

   Synonyms: rarity, black swan, hen's tooth, lightning in a bottle, one in a million, rare bird, rarity, rocking horse shit