rarefied

[ rair-uh-fahyd ]

/ ˈrɛər əˌfaɪd /

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adjective

extremely high or elevated; lofty; exalted: the rarefied atmosphere of a scholarly symposium.

of, belonging to, or appealing to an exclusive group; select; esoteric: rarefied tastes.

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His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

His boss, who he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

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Origin of rarefied

First recorded in 1660–70; rarefy + -ed²

OTHER WORDS FROM rarefied

ul·tra·rar·e·fied, adjectiveun·rar·e·fied, adjective

Words nearby rarefied

rare book, rare earth, rare-earth element, raree show, rarefaction, rarefied, rarefy, rare gas, rarely, rarely ever, rareripe

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use rarefied in a sentence

The school eventually began admitting women, but maintained its status as a rarefied institution where school breaks are spent on week-long camping trips and all students are given a horse to care for in their first year.
Elite California Private School Comes Clean on Decades of Sexual Abuse|Emily Shugerman|June 17, 2021|The Daily Beast
In those years and across those miles, the ship will be looking for other Kuiper Belt objects in its path that may warrant a visit, and will be studying the space environment as it sails on to more and more rarefied distances.
After Visiting Pluto, NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Reaches Another Cosmic Milestone|Jeffrey Kluger|April 16, 2021|Time
Small-batch artisan vegan cheese, the kind that oozes, stinks, and blooms as convincingly as its dairy counterparts, constitutes the highest and most rarefied tier of vegan cheese.
Vegan Cheese Is Ready to Compete With Dairy. Is the World Ready to Eat It?|Alicia Kennedy|April 1, 2021|Eater
Now, with two recent papers, Michael Filaseta of the University of South Carolina has carried the idea further, coming up with an even more rarefied class of digitally delicate prime numbers.
Mathematicians Find a New Class of Digitally Delicate Primes|Steve Nadis|March 30, 2021|Quanta Magazine

Kennedy’s commitment to people forgotten in the rarefied halls of the Capitol shaped decades of seminal legislation, ranging from the Americans With Disabilities Act to the Family and Medical Leave Act to the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.
Xavier Becerra is the victim of the right’s distortion of Catholicism|Duncan Hosie|March 19, 2021|Washington Post
These subtleties are easily missed from the national perspective and, apparently, inside the rarefied air of the NRCC.
Mark Sanford Ditched by NRCC, but Counting Him Out Would Be Unwise|John Avlon|April 18, 2013|DAILY BEAST
St. Peter Damian damned her for “excessive delicacy” in preferring such a rarefied implement to her God-given hands.
The Strange Way We Eat: Bee Wilson’s ‘Consider the Fork’|Bee Wilson|October 13, 2012|DAILY BEAST
They know how to talk mathematics of a very rarefied kind that most of us find quite impossible to understand.
Curse of the Rogue French Trader|Christopher Dickey|May 14, 2012|DAILY BEAST
She is not some rarefied doyenne whose choices carry moral clout.
Kate's Controversial Gown|Robin Givhan|July 2, 2011|DAILY BEAST
With that single gesture, he put a human face on this rarefied brand, one that last year boasted €826 million in revenue.
Galliano Erased at Christian Dior|Robin Givhan|March 7, 2011|DAILY BEAST
In its ascent the air is cooled, rarefied, and to a great extent deprived of its moisture.
Outlines of the Earth's History|Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
Lifted upward, the air as it ascends the slopes is brought into cooler and more rarefied conditions.
Outlines of the Earth's History|Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
For in the rarefied air at high altitudes there is insufficient oxygen to promote the normal oxidation of bodily tissue.
Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921|Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury
After an abode of some time in the mountainous regions, the constitution becomes inured to the rarefied atmosphere.
Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests|J. J. von Tschudi
The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had rarefied the air under the cliffs.
The Beach of Dreams|H. De Vere Stacpoole

British Dictionary definitions for rarefied

rarefied

/ (ˈrɛərɪˌfaɪd) /

adjective

exalted in nature or character; loftya rarefied spiritual existence

current within only a small group; esoteric or exclusive

(of a gas, esp the atmosphere at high altitudes) having a low density; thin

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

rarefied

Origin of rarefied

OTHER WORDS FROM rarefied

Words nearby rarefied

Words related to rarefied

How to use rarefied in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for rarefied