rarefy
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to make rare or rarer; make less dense.
to rarefy a gas.
-
to make more refined, spiritual, or exalted.
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rarefy
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English rarefien, from Middle French rarefier, from Medieval Latin rārificāre, from Latin rārēfacere, equivalent to rārē-, irregular, unexplained combining form of rārus + facere “to make”; see origin at rare 1, -fy
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Although these sculptures pay tribute to commercialism, they rarefy it to something austere — or at least as austere as anything with pulsing green lights can be.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 19, 2018
Of course it’s serious, and art is serious, but I’m not going to rarefy it.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 16, 2011
It contains moist air and a movable diaphragm or piston to rarefy it suddenly.
From Time Magazine Archive
It will be well also to compare such words as stupefy and stupidity, rarity and rarefy.
From The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric by Sherwin Cody
But as such means are not at disposal, it becomes necessary to place the terminal in a bulb and rarefy the air in the same.
From Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency by Nikola Tesla
If he wanted to join the rarefied air of the sons and daughters of The 400, he couldn’t be seen associated with anyone who would count as a mark against his judgment.
From Salon ● Oct. 28, 2026
In the same way that regional brands like Shake Shack and In-N-Out have maintained cult followings for their novelty, Cane’s has no doubt benefited from the same kind of rarefied air.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026
The analytics website Data Golf has metrics that rate amateur players going back to 2010—and Koivun tops a list that puts him in rarefied company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Were Chun to win this tournament, she would be in rarefied air with bookend victories separated by 11 years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
Galaxies would become ever more distant from one another, and the star stuff that drives all the energetic reactions in the universe would become more rarefied.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
After rarefying to 5,000 sequences per sample, a total of 307,572 unique sequences were contained in the 96 studies and 23,828 samples of the ‘QC-filtered’ Deblur 90-bp observation table.
From Nature ● Oct. 31, 2017
Good again! the hot-water plate represents the land rarefying the air over it.
From No Name by Wilkie Collins
On rarefying the gas, the formation of the brush was facilitated, but it was generally of a low squat form, very poor in light, and very similar on both the positive and negative surfaces.
From Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 by Michael Faraday
Funnels for clearing ships' holds of foul air, on the principle of the rarefying power of heat.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher
And here, it is proper to add, that all aromatics, by rarefying the blood, are cordial.
From A Treatise on Foreign Teas Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, Entitled An Essay On the Nerves by Hugh Smith
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