How to use rarefied in a sentence

10 example sentences · adjective

Rarefied means distant from the lives and everyday concerns of ordinary people; esoteric, exclusive, select. Example: “Philosophical debates can be quite rarefied.”

Examples of rarefied by meaning

adjectiveDistant from the lives and everyday concerns of ordinary people; esoteric, exclusive, select.

Philosophical debates can be quite rarefied.
Of course, Beaumont was the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a split in the Cabinet.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter II, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
I have done the whole S&M route: the costumes and all, so I'm not talking from any rarified point — that's very important.1977 April 30, David Holland, John Rechy, “The Politics of 'The Sexual Outlaw'”, in Gay Community News, page 9

adjectiveLess dense than usual; thin.

The air at high altitudes at the top of mountains is rarefied.

More sentences with rarefied

But wine, that most rarefied of libations, has been a little slower to the sober-curious party.2023 March 24, Laura Reiley, “Could nonalcoholic wine be the toast of the town?”, in The Washington Post. From the entry sober-curious
An earlier and slightly mysterious version of Betteridge's law applies to the rarefied world of particle physics.2015, Philip Gooden, “Arts”, in Skyscrapers, Hemlines and the Eddie Murphy Rule: Life’s Hidden Laws, Rules and Theories, London; New York…. From the entry Betteridge's Law
From this rarefied dataset, alpha diversity was estimated in two ways using QIIME v1.8: observed species and phylodiversity.2015 October 21, “Flea-Associated Bacterial Communities across an Environmental Transect in a Plague-Endemic Region of Uganda”, in PLOS…. From the entry phylodiversity
At every turn, Collyers's aggressive new management in London was out-maneuvering and out promoting the double doyens of the rarefied art auction world.1997, Thomas Swan, The Cezanne Chase, page 171. From the entry doyen
Indeed, one might suppose that its esoteries, its intangibilities, and its rarefied and personal visions, would make it invulnerable to the conformist vulgarities of anti-Semitism.1996, Anthony Julius, T.S. Eliot, anti-semitism, and literary form, page 92. From the entry esotery
The geographic features of the plateau (high elevation, rarefied air, mountains, etc.) limited the volume of trade and migration between Tibet and other regions.1995, Rong Ma, edited by Calvin Goldscheider, Economic Patterns, Migration, and Ethnic Relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China…. From the entry han

Meaning of rarefied

adjective Distant from the lives and everyday concerns of ordinary people; esoteric, exclusive, select.
adjective Elevated in style or nature, sublime; of high intellectual or moral value.
adjective Less dense than usual; thin.

Full definition of rarefied

Questions about rarefied in a sentence

How do you use rarefied in a sentence?: Rarefied is used as an adjective. For example: “Philosophical debates can be quite rarefied.”
What is a short sentence with rarefied?: “Philosophical debates can be quite rarefied.”
What does rarefied mean?: Rarefied means distant from the lives and everyday concerns of ordinary people; esoteric, exclusive, select.

Adapted from Wiktionary: rarefied (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use rarefied in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/rarefied. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.