rarefied

[ rair-uh-fahyd ]

adjective

1. extremely high or elevated; lofty; exalted:

   the rarefied atmosphere of a scholarly symposium.

2. of, belonging to, or appealing to an exclusive group; select; esoteric:

   rarefied tastes.

rarefied

/ ˈrɛərɪˌfaɪd /

adjective

1. exalted in nature or character; lofty

   a rarefied spiritual existence

2. current within only a small group; esoteric or exclusive
3. (of a gas, esp the atmosphere at high altitudes) having a low density; thin

Other Words From

• ultra·rare·fied adjective
• un·rare·fied adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of rarefied¹

First recorded in 1660–70; rarefy + -ed ²

Example Sentences

The school eventually began admitting women, but maintained its status as a rarefied institution where school breaks are spent on week-long camping trips and all students are given a horse to care for in their first year.

From The Daily Beast

In those years and across those miles, the ship will be looking for other Kuiper Belt objects in its path that may warrant a visit, and will be studying the space environment as it sails on to more and more rarefied distances.

From Time

Small-batch artisan vegan cheese, the kind that oozes, stinks, and blooms as convincingly as its dairy counterparts, constitutes the highest and most rarefied tier of vegan cheese.

From Eater

Now, with two recent papers, Michael Filaseta of the University of South Carolina has carried the idea further, coming up with an even more rarefied class of digitally delicate prime numbers.

From Quanta Magazine

Kennedy’s commitment to people forgotten in the rarefied halls of the Capitol shaped decades of seminal legislation, ranging from the Americans With Disabilities Act to the Family and Medical Leave Act to the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.

From Washington Post

These subtleties are easily missed from the national perspective and, apparently, inside the rarefied air of the NRCC.

From The Daily Beast

St. Peter Damian damned her for “excessive delicacy” in preferring such a rarefied implement to her God-given hands.

From The Daily Beast

They know how to talk mathematics of a very rarefied kind that most of us find quite impossible to understand.

From The Daily Beast

She is not some rarefied doyenne whose choices carry moral clout.

From The Daily Beast

With that single gesture, he put a human face on this rarefied brand, one that last year boasted €826 million in revenue.

From The Daily Beast

In its ascent the air is cooled, rarefied, and to a great extent deprived of its moisture.

From Project Gutenberg

Lifted upward, the air as it ascends the slopes is brought into cooler and more rarefied conditions.

From Project Gutenberg

For in the rarefied air at high altitudes there is insufficient oxygen to promote the normal oxidation of bodily tissue.

From Project Gutenberg

After an abode of some time in the mountainous regions, the constitution becomes inured to the rarefied atmosphere.

From Project Gutenberg

The girl felt light-headed and giddy as though the rush above had rarefied the air under the cliffs.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• esoteric
• exalted
• lofty