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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
Rory Smith, New York Times, 12 Apr. 2024
Jennifer Lawrence, who is a walking advert for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s rarefied wrong shoes, capacious totes, and swaddling cashmere (perfect for hiding from the paps in).
—Alice Newbold, Vogue, 27 Mar. 2024
This is a complex, dynamic region of hot, rarefied plasma—ionized gas—swirling and billowing in magnetic fields that emanate from deeper within, and being in the moon’s star-blocking shadow is by far the best time to see it.
—Popsci Staff, Popular Science, 27 Mar. 2024
Operated by the carrier’s Boeing 777-300ER plane, the route is nonstop from New York to Hong Kong—meaning the 16-hour flight leaves plenty of time to soak up every amenity this rarefied travel experience has to offer.
—Jessica Puckett, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 Jan. 2024
But the iconic brand, owned by Hilton, is hardly alone in selling rarefied real estate.
—Paul Brady, Travel + Leisure, 18 Mar. 2024
If an in-demand celebrity opts for a certain designer on their biggest night of the year, the general public will also notice the rarefied status of said designer.
—Vogue, 12 Mar. 2024
This question of how to situate our time in the narrative arc of Earth history has thrust the rarefied world of geological timekeepers into an unfamiliar limelight.
—Raymond Zhong, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2024
Many sports drive tourism but snow polo events—which occur in just a handful of lofty locales each year—have become a status symbol like few others, even within the already rarefied world of polo.
—Todd Plummer, Robb Report, 23 Feb. 2024
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.
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“Rarefied.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rarefied. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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