Seldom means not often at all. Seldom seen, seldom if ever, we seldom go.
It is more formal than rarely and considerably more formal than hardly ever. It goes before the main verb: he seldom writes. Seldom if ever is a fixed phrase meaning almost never. In formal writing, seldom can begin a sentence with the verb inverted — seldom has a decision been so unpopular — which is a deliberate literary effect. Note that seldom has no comparative, so less often does that job.
1adverbseldomNot often at all.
“He seldom writes and always at about four in the morning.”
synonyms: rarely, hardly ever
seldom is a frequency.
Also accepted in games: rarely
Old English seldan is Germanic and related to the German selten. The final m was added by analogy with words like whilom and seldom's old companion often, which itself gained its t the same way.
Proto-Germanic
*seldanē
Proto-West Germanic
*seldanā
Old English
seldan — seldom
Middle English
seldom
English, today
seldom
From late Middle English seldom, alteration of earlier selden by analogy with adverbial datives such as whilom, from Old English seldan (“seldom”), from Proto-West Germanic seldanā, from Proto-Germanic seldanē. Cognate with stq säilden (“seldom”), West Frisian selden, komselden (“rare, seldom”), Dutch zelden, German selten, Danish sjælden, Norwegian Bokmål sjelden, Norwegian Nynorsk sjeldan, Swedish sällan, Faroese sjáldan, Icelandic sjaldan. More at seld and selly.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives