adj, verb ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   simple past and past participle of rarefy form-of, participle, past

Adjective

1. 1
   Distant from the lives and everyday concerns of ordinary people; esoteric, exclusive, select.

   "Philosophical debates can be quite rarefied."

2. 2
   Elevated in style or nature, sublime; of high intellectual or moral value.
3. 3
   Less dense than usual; thin.

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

Adjective

1. 1
   of high moral or intellectual value; elevated in nature or style wordnet
2. 2
   having low density wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

thinadulteratedair builtair-builtairyattenuate

Antonyms

All antonyms

dense

Example

More examples

"The air is rarefied on high mountains."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.