rarefied en · ADJ
Meanings
-
Distant from the lives and everyday concerns of ordinary people; esoteric, exclusive, select.
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:One day, she had to present the children, dressing them formally and introducing them by their full titles, ahead of high tea with extended family. It had been a crash course into the rarefied world in which some Norland charges live.
2023 April 29, Lou Stoppard, “Inside the world of the elite nanny”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC:The country gentry of old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted apart on their stations up the mountain they looked down with imperfect discrimination on the belts of thicker life below.
1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXXIV, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book IV:I'm not taking the stand of any moralist. 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. That I have experienced it, that I have lived it.
1977 April 30, David Holland, John Rechy, “The Politics of 'The Sexual Outlaw'”, in Gay Community News, page 9:Philosophical debates can be quite rarefied.
- Elevated in style or nature, sublime; of high intellectual or moral value.
-
(of a gas etc.) Less dense than usual; thin.
The air at high altitudes at the top of mountains is rarefied.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| rarified | alternative | lexicographic | |
| more rarefied | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic | |
| most rarefied | Degree=Sup | lexicographic |
Deriveds
unrarefied · ultrararefied · nonrarefied
Translations (32)
de herausgehoben (distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) · eo maldensa (less dense than usual) · ru утончённый (elevated in style or nature) · bg възвишен (elevated in style or nature) · cs zředěný (less dense than usual) · de verfeinert (elevated in style or nature) · es enrarecido (less dense than usual) · de erhaben (elevated in style or nature) · de verdünnt (less dense than usual) · ga séimh (less dense than usual) · pt rarefeito (less dense than usual) · pl rozrzedzony (less dense than usual) · de abgehoben (distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) · de sublim (elevated in style or nature) · gv thannit (less dense than usual) · uk розрі́джений (less dense than usual) · eo rara (less dense than usual) · de exklusiv (elevated in style or nature) · de realitätsfern (distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) · de dünn (less dense than usual) · es rareado (less dense than usual) · ru разрежённый (less dense than usual) · vo feinüköl (less dense than usual) · bg разреден (less dense than usual) · de entrückt (distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) · de abstrakt (distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) · es rarefecho (less dense than usual) · bg езотеричен (distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) · es rarificado (less dense than usual) · cs ředěný (less dense than usual) · de anspruchsvoll (elevated in style or nature) · fr raréfié (less dense than usual)