Seldom

Seldom is an English adverb meaning not often or rarely. It describes how frequently an action occurs or how often a condition holds, often conveying a formal or literary tone.

In terms of placement, seldom is typically used before the main verb: "Seldom does he speak." It can also follow forms of be: "The town is seldom visited." In formal writing, the fronted position of seldom commonly triggers subject–auxiliary inversion, as in "Seldom have I seen such a scene."

Register and nuance: Seldom carries a somewhat old-fashioned or literary feel and is less common in everyday speech than synonyms like rarely or occasionally. It can add a measured or elevated tone to prose.

Etymology: The word derives from Old English seld, meaning rare or uncommon, with a suffix forming an adverb, yielding the modern sense of infrequency. It has appeared in English since the Middle Ages.

Usage notes: The nonstandard form seldomly is generally discouraged in modern usage; rarely is more common in contemporary prose. The phrase not seldom means "often" or "quite often" and is stylistically marked as emphatic or archaic.

Examples:

- Seldom does he miss a deadline.

- The library is seldom crowded in the early morning.

- Seldom have I encountered such generosity.

See also: rare, rarely, occasionally, infrequency.