How to Use rarefied in a Sentence

rarefied

adjective
  • It's difficult to breathe in the rarefied air near the mountain's peak.
  • But Haaland breathes that sort of rarefied air.
    — Steve Buckley, New York Times, 17 June 2026
  • In my actual life, which is a very rarefied life, to be clear.
    — Jesse David Fox, Vulture, 28 May 2024
  • Arch just entered rarefied air.
    — Cedric Golden, Austin American Statesman, 2 Jan. 2026
  • Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.
    — Oliver Darcy, CNN, 21 Sep. 2023
  • Perhaps no object in the art world is more rarefied than a Fabergé egg.
    — Stu Woo and Aruna Viswanatha, WSJ, 7 Dec. 2022
  • That’s rarefied air for two schools that spend half of the year (or more) obsessed with football.
    — Austin Meek, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2026
  • But many wealthy pet owners are willing to shill out for these rarefied services.
    — Jacob Brogan, Smithsonian, 22 Mar. 2018
  • But 18 seasons is rarefied air.
    — Bryan Alexander, USA Today, 25 Mar. 2026
  • At the top end are rarefied spaces reserved for airline elite.
    — Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Aug. 2018
  • The screenplay was written with a very rarefied dialect in mind.
    — Selome Hailu, Variety, 24 Aug. 2021
  • But even among that rarefied bunch, Mosehla cuts a distinct profile.
    — Ryan Lenora Brown, New York Times, 11 Dec. 2023
  • At its rarefied best, tavern-style defies the laws of physics with crunch and flavor.
    — Louisa Chu, Chicago Tribune, 12 Sep. 2022
  • If this merry-go-round seems rarefied, the neighborhood strives for the same tone.
    — Michael Tortorello, WSJ, 1 Sep. 2017
  • For people who find grass too rarefied, there are six clay courts and two cushioned hardtop courts.
    — Thomas Swick, Sun Sentinel, 6 May 2025
  • But Bowman is headed to rarefied air.
    — Eric Sondheimer, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2026
  • The win clinched at least a share of the Big Ten title, putting this team in rarefied air.
    — Tyler Tachman, The Indianapolis Star, 20 Feb. 2023
  • The last player to do both at such a rarefied level was Babe Ruth.
    — Nicholas Dawidoff, The New Yorker, 26 Oct. 2024
  • But the battlefield for me is the rarefied air of the gatekeepers.
    — Giulia Carbonaro, Newsweek, 3 Mar. 2025
  • Just like that, they were catapulted into the rarefied world of fine art.
    — Sandra Upson, Wired, 11 Nov. 2021
  • Milk Room is a tiny altar to the heady, rarefied world of vintage spirits and amaros.
    — Esquire Editors, Esquire, 25 May 2017
  • The best of the songs have a translucent quality, a rarefied lyricism.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 15 Mar. 2021
  • For those who are actually wealthy, there are even more rarefied options.
    — Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
  • Now the area trades mostly in the rarefied and intangible realm of apps and software.
    — Tatiana Schlossberg, The Atlantic, 22 Sep. 2019
  • In the rarefied world of pink diamonds, large stones are near impossible to find and cut.
    — Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 12 May 2021
  • The protesters aren’t asking to enter those rarefied realms but to be clerks and sweepers and cops.
    — Kushanava Choudhury, WSJ, 15 Aug. 2018
  • Youri Tielemans is a midfield craftsman, boasting a skill set that is in rarefied air.
    — Jacob Tanswell, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2025
  • Some Bay Area residents who cashed out are looking for homes in rarefied price ranges.
    — Tony Bizjak, sacbee, 18 June 2018
  • Art exhibits now find themselves at the more rarefied end of this unpleasant business.
    — Lionel Laurent, Twin Cities, 24 Oct. 2025
  • That’s the rarefied air that Denzel Washington lives and breathes in.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 7 June 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rarefied.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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