unseldom
English
WOTD – 10 August 2023
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ʌnˈsɛldəm/
- Rhymes: -ɛldəm
- Hyphenation: un‧sel‧dom
Adverb
unseldom (comparative more unseldom, superlative most unseldom)
- (literary) Not seldom; frequently, regularly.
- Synonyms: (literary except India) unoften; see also Thesaurus:often
- 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter V, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume II, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 52:
- When Mr. Collins said any thing of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte.
- [1878], William Morris, The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress […], London: Ellis and White, […], →OCLC, page 21:
- For as was the land, such was the art of it while folk yet troubled themselves about such things; it strove little to impress people either by pomp or ingenuity: not unseldom it fell into commonplace, rarely it rose into majesty; yet was it never oppressive, never a slave’s nightmare or an insolent boast: and at its best it had an inventiveness, an individuality, that grander styles have never overpassed: […]
- 1921, Walter B[urton] Harris, “The Moorish Court. I. The Accession of Mulai Abdul Aziz.”, in Morocco That Was, Edinburgh, London: Wiliam Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 17:
- Mulai Abdul Aziz was, at the time of his succession (1894), about twelve or thirteen years of age. He was a younger son of the late Sultan, for Islamic thrones do not necessarily descend by primogeniture. It is not unseldom a brother who succeeds, and at times even more distant relations.
Usage notes
- Almost exclusively used in the phrase not unseldom,[3] an example of litotes.
Translations
References
- “unseldom, adv.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
- “unseldom, adv.”, in Collins English Dictionary.
- unseldom, not unseldom at Google Ngram Viewer
Further reading
- “unseldom”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.