seltene

Seltene is an inflected form of the German adjective selten, meaning "rare." It is used before nouns to express rarity and is not generally a standalone noun in standard prose.

In everyday German, you can find phrases such as "eine seltene Blume" (a rare flower) or "seltene Arten" (rare species). The form "seltene" appears with feminine singular nouns and in certain plural constructions, depending on the determiner and case. For example, "die seltene Art" (the rare type) and "eine seltene Blume" illustrate its common usage before feminine nouns in singular, while "seltene Arten" shows its use with plural nouns.

In technical contexts, the term "Seltene Erden" is a common noun phrase for the group known in English as rare earth elements. The phrase is usually written with both words capitalized as a fixed term, reflecting its status as a technical designation.

The word also appears in scientific and cultural usage to denote unusual or unique examples, such as rare events or rare species. It is often contrasted with "selten," the adverb meaning rarely, to distinguish descriptive uses before nouns from adverbial usage.

Related terms include Seltenheit, the noun for rarity, and in English, the corresponding translation "rare." The concept of rarity covered by "seltene" spans natural history, geology, and everyday language, where precise description of frequency or abundance matters for classification and discussion.