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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
Jason Lipshutz, Billboard, 20 Nov. 2024
This episode furnishes just enough Nadine nonsense to up the fun factor and highlights once again what rarefied milieux Elsbeth and Kaya navigate each week.
—Sophie Brookover, Vulture, 14 Nov. 2024
Carter also joins a rarefied group of equally accomplished, noteworthy people, who made it to their 100th birthday, across film, TV and even royalty.
—Alex Apatoff, People.com, 1 Oct. 2024
Within that rarefied subset, only a handful were RS variants.
—Sean Evans, Robb Report, 30 Oct. 2024
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Dictionary Entries Near rarefied
Cite this Entry
“Rarefied.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rarefied. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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