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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
Mark Lazerus, New York Times, 12 May 2025
Circuit two brings you into some of the ruins, while circuit three takes you to rarefied spaces once reserved for Inca royalty and is the most physically challenging option.
—Jennifer Kester, Forbes.com, 7 May 2025
This year, one of those rarefied lenses belonged to photographer Ruth Ginika Ossai, who was invited to create a special series of portraits taken inside the museum itself.
—Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 7 May 2025
While Beyoncé and Jay-Z have occasionally brought their children to high-profile events—Blue Ivy has made appearances at everything from the Super Bowl to the Grammys—the Met Gala is a rarefied event with stricter age rules and exclusivity.
—Tahar Rajab, MSNBC Newsweek, 6 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for rarefied
Cite this Entry
“Rarefied.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rarefied. Accessed 28 May. 2025.
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