rarefied

adjective

rar·e·fied ˈrer-ə-ˌfīd

variants or less commonly rarified

Synonyms of rarefied next

: being less dense

: of, relating to, or interesting to a select group : esoteric

: very high

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In the upper reaches of Chomolungma, known more familiarly as Mount Everest, the air is so rarefied—so much less dense than at lower elevations—that most climbers use supplemental oxygen in order to successfully complete their climb. This sense of rarefied, a word that comes from a combination of the Latin words rarus (“thin” or “rare”) and facere (“to make”), has been in use since the 1500s. A second, figurative sense of rarefied developed in the following century to describe things that can only be understood by a small or select group, i.e. one “thinned” from the majority of people by dint of their unique experience, expertise, or status. It’s this sense that we use when we say that to successfully summit Chomolungma puts one in rarefied company—just over 6,000 people have made it to the top at the time of this writing.

Examples of rarefied in a Sentence

It's difficult to breathe in the rarefied air near the mountain's peak.

Recent Examples on the Web This all amounts to a rarefied American tennis story, which will see its biggest moment at the US Open’s women’s final on Saturday. —

Nick Remsen, Vogue, 6 Sep. 2024 The party represented a rarefied kind of decadence that many trans people don’t often get to experience, and every trans person got in for free. —

James Factora, Them, 5 Sep. 2024 The Fritz and Zverev quarter-final was a prime example of two men who didn’t quite know how to take control in the rarefied air where silverware is close. —

Tim Ellis, Forbes, 4 Sep. 2024 Air resistance from the rarefied upper atmosphere gradually slows the trunk's velocity enough to drop it out of orbit, and the amount of aerodynamic drag the trunk sees is largely determined by fluctuations in solar activity. —

Stephen Clark, Ars Technica, 29 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for rarefied

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rarefied.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.