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
The air consequently was damp and gross, for want of stronger rays to open and rarefy it.
From The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch being parts of the "Lives" of Plutarch, edited for boys and girls by White, John S. (John Stuart)
But as such means are not at disposal, it becomes necessary to place the terminal in the bulb and rarefy the air in the same.
From The inventions, researches and writings of Nikola Tesla With special reference to his work in polyphase currents and high potential lighting by Martin, Thomas Commerford
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
Such is the rarefied air they're breathing at this World Cup, what we said in previewing Haiti can be said again in looking forward to Morocco.
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026
This week's reception promises to be just as grand, including a stop inside Zhongnanhai, the rarefied compound where China's top leadership lives and works.
From BBC ● May 12, 2026
The poaching has created a well-compensated game of musical chairs that has reshuffled the rarefied roster of lawyers considered go-to advocates before the nation’s high court.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
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
And thinning, with escaping pressure, rarefying so that I could feel the grasp of it in my lungs and the pin-pricks in my cheeks.
From Brigands of the Moon by Cummings, Ray
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 Smith, Hugh
A head of one hundred and eighty degrees is sufficient to diminish the weight of the air it contains to the extent of one-half, by rarefying it.
From Five Weeks in a Balloon by Verne, Jules
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 Faraday, Michael
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
