Seld

Part of speech: adverb, adjective

Definitions

1. Occurring or happening infrequently or on rare occasions
2. Appearing or taking place only occasionally, at long intervals apart
3. Marked by infrequent occurrence or happening only at scattered intervals

Etymology: "Seld" is an archaic word for "seldom," meaning rarely or infrequently. Its path into modern English is a little unusual, because it grew out of a comparative form. Old English had "seldor," meaning "more seldom," and "seldost," meaning "most seldom." English speakers later worked backwards from these forms and created a new base word, "selde," which functioned as both an adjective and an adverb. The rarity sense is built into the original comparative, so the core idea has been there from the start. The same root also gave English a noun. In Old English, "seld" meant a seat, and its neuter form was a metathetic variant of "setl," the ancestor of the modern word "settle." Metathesis is a sound change in which two sounds swap places, so "setl" became "seld" by reversing the order of the "t" and "l" sounds. The noun's sense of "seat" or "dwelling" is the older meaning, and it is connected to the same root that gives us "settle."

Synonyms: seldom, rarely, infrequently

Antonyms: often, frequently, commonly