RAREFIED • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Rarefied

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/rˈɛrəfaɪd/ Listen

Rarefied

adjective

1.

Having low density. Synonyms: rare, rarified. "Lightheaded from the rarefied mountain air"

2.

Of high moral or intellectual value; elevated in nature or style. Synonyms: elevated, exalted, grand, high-flown, high-minded, idealistic, lofty, noble-minded, rarified, sublime. "Argue in terms of high-flown ideals" , "A noble and lofty concept" , "A grand purpose"

Rarefy

verb

(past & past part. rarefied; pres. part. rarefying)

1.

Lessen the density or solidity of.

2.

Make more subtle or refined. Synonyms: sublimate, subtilize.

3.

Weaken the consistency of (a chemical substance). Synonym: attenuate.

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Etymology of 'Rarefied'

WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Rarefied" Quotes from Famous Books

... Such rarefied confessions were common, and this was one of many occasions when I disgraced William by snickering in the solemn pause ...

— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down from Mudie's Library brought with them not only their own romance, ...

— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... be nearer the truth to rank Racine among the idealists. The world of his creation is not a copy of our own; it is a heightened and rarefied extension of it; moving, in triumph and in beauty, through 'an ampler ether, a diviner air.' It is a world where the hesitations and the pettinesses and the squalors of this earth have been fired out; a world where ugliness is a forgotten ...

— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... comfort to the healthy natural man in being told that the good he does will not be interred with his bones, since he does not wish to think, and in fact refuses to think, that his bones will ever be interred. Joy in the "choir invisible" is to him a mere poetic fancy, or at best a rarefied transcendentalism, which fails to sustain him. If altruism, or the religion of humanity, is a living vigorous plant, and as some believe flourishes more with the progress of the centuries, it must, like other "soul-growths," have a deeper, tougher ...

— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... that they saw lakes of water in the distance, and hastened on to them; and then they fancied they were close to rivers and islands, covered with luxuriant foliage, but still were doomed to disappointment; as all was the result of the highly-rarefied air, and the refraction of the sun's rays on the sultry plain. What would they have given for a bush even to afford them any shelter from the noonday sun, for the crowns of their heads appeared as if covered with live coal, and their minds began to wander. The poor horses moved ...

— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

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