seldom

Word family

sel·dom /ˈseldəm/ adverbadv

RARELYvery rarely or almost never 很少，罕见，不常

Karen had seldom seen him so angry.

卡伦很少见他这么生气过。

► see thesaurus at rarely

Seldom sounds rather literary. In everyday English, people usually say rarely or not very often: 听上去带点文学色彩。在日常英语中,人们一般说rarely或not very often

I seldom go there. → I don’t go there very often. 我不常去那里。

GRAMMAR: Word order

In formal writing, seldom can be put first, followed by an auxiliary and the subject, to emphasize that something very rarely happens: 在正式的书面写作中,seldom可以位于句首,后面跟助动词和主语,强调某事很少发生

Seldom have I read an article that was so full of lies.

我很少读到这样满纸谎言的文章。

Examples from the Corpus

seldom• Anna seldom eats at home.• Seldom have I read a book with such a powerful message.• And the evening will include a session with rare and seldom heard recordings by the star.• Council meetings are seldom longer than an hour.• He has too often been seen snarling and too seldom seen smiling.• But no one really knew, since he seldom spoke, except in monosyllables, and ignored most greetings.• He seldom wasted time wondering why people wanted other people dead.

Origin seldom

Old English seldan

sel·dom adverbadv →GRAMMAR1 →REGISTER1

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus