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
But extend this vapour, rarefy it; from so narrow a room as our natural bodies, to any politic body, to a state.
From Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Together with Death's Duel by Donne, John
The hot air in the smoke flues will warm the separating brick partition, and consequently rarefy the air in the ventilating flue.
From A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) by Cutter, Calvin
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
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
They experienced a rarefied state — a gap between life and death as narrow as the notch they were attempting to clear at dusk Saturday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2026
Their stakes are real, but the dispute comes to the court in such rarefied doctrinal form that the underlying injury almost disappears.
From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2026
There was always sunshine, always a tiny sticking in the throat from the rarefied air.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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
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 still more, a few large ramifications were obtained of a pale bluish colour, utterly unlike those in nitrogen.
From Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 by Faraday, Michael
And with regard to their balsamic and aromatic nature, these qualities warm the stomach and expel wind, by rarefying the flatuous exhalations from chyle in the prima viæ.
From A Treatise on Foreign Teas Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, Entitled An Essay On the Nerves by Smith, Hugh
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
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.
