rarefied

adjective

rar·​e·​fied ˈrer-ə-ˌfīd 

variants or less commonly rarified

1

: being less dense

2

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

3

: very high

Did you know?

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

Instead, Wiig takes center stage as Maxine Simmons, an ambitious social climber in the rarefied Palm Beach society. —Jordan Riefe, Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2024

Stephen Merchant Monologues on The Late Show Disguising prepared stand-up material as talk-show chat is a rarefied, historic art. —Bethy Squires, Vulture, 7 June 2024

More recently, another team led by Zucker mapped what is known as the Local Bubble, a nearly empty region around the solar system made of hot, rarefied gas, and found the bubble outlined by groups of young stars, all moving outward. —Ann Finkbeiner, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2024

In my actual life, which is a very rarefied life, to be clear. —Jesse David Fox, Vulture, 28 May 2024

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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