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 rarefy of the atmosphere continued to affect the wood-work of the wagons, and the wheels were incessantly falling to pieces.
From The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West by Bonneville, Benjamin Louis Eulalie de
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
There are good to very good players sprinkled around the team, but the collective is decidedly average, at best, in the rarefied air of a World Cup.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026
On Friday, Trump will pay a visit to Zhongnanhai, a rarefied compound where China's leaders live and work.
From BBC ● May 13, 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
At a modest high school in the Tidewater city of Portsmouth, not far from John Casteen’s boyhood home, a guidance-office wall filled with college pennants does not include one from rarefied Virginia.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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
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 Belcher, Edward, Sir
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
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
The first will represent the ocean, and the latter an island made hot by the rays of the sun, and rarefying the air above it.
From The Ocean and its Wonders by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert 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.
