rarefiedadj.

1523 J. Skelton Goodly Garlande of Laurell sig. C2 The clowdis gan to clere, y^e myst was rarifijd.

1634 H. Peacham Gentlemans Exercise (new ed.) iii. 140 The higher parts of the ayre, which..are more rarified and pure then the neather.

1661 J. Glanvill Vanity of Dogmatizing iii. 22 That a Bullet should be moved by the rarified fire.

1701 tr. D. Tauvry New Rational Anat. i. iv. 55 A much greater force is required to squeeze out a certain quantity of Liquor when it is rarified, than when it is not.

1785 B. Franklin Let. 28 Aug. in Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. (1786) 2 2 I need not explain to you..what is meant by rarefied air.

1839 C. Darwin in R. Fitzroy & C. Darwin Narr. Surv. Voy. H.M.S. Adventure & Beagle III. xvii. 393 The short breathing from the rarefied atmosphere is called by the Chilenos ‘puna’.

1880 J. E. H. Gordon Physical Treat. Electr. & Magn. (1883) II. 187 It follows almost as a matter of course that all discharges in rarefied air are equally disruptive and discontinuous.

1939 E. D. Laborde tr. E. de Martonne Shorter Physical Geogr. (rev. ed.) v. 77 Since the rarefied air of elevated regions absorbs less heat than air at lower levels, it loses less during periods of cooling.

1971 Times 15 June 15/1 Influences from the rarefied levels 10 to 20 miles high are of no immediate importance to the weather forecaster.

2006 Brain Res. 1107 73 (caption) The typical findings at 4 h are a mild degree of interstitial edema giving portions of the CCCB track a rarefied appearance.

1662 Duchess of Newcastle Comical Hash iii. x, in Playes Written 566 The Mind dilates, as the Sun his heat, which is in Poetick flames, and in rarified fancies.

1768 W. Donaldson Life Sir Bartholomew Sapskull II. i. 8 The citizen from the ungenial atmosphere of Watling-street may distinguish the infernal pride of Paulus Amilus from the divine humility of Edward the black, as readily and as clearly as the coxcomb of taste in the more rarified element of courtly St. James.

1850 H. Melville White-jacket xliv. 220 From our social superiority, highly rarified education in our lofty top,..we were in a good degree free from those useless, personal prejudices.

1855 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Philip II of Spain I. ii. iv. 464 The brisk and rarefied atmosphere of Madrid proved favorable to Charles's health.

1872 ‘G. Eliot’ Middlemarch I. ii. xv. 259 The expensive and highly-rarefied medical instruction obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.

1917 J. M. A. Lairdi Probl. of Self i. 7 The word ‘soul’..breathes the rarefied atmosphere of poetry and theology.

1977 G. Michanowsky Once & Future Star iv. 33 In the rarefied world of cuneiform scholarship, it is known as BM—86378.

1999 Columbia Law Rev. 99 938 The answers to these questions will not depend primarily on rarified theoretical arguments about democratic legitimacy.

2001 P. P. Read Alice in Exile (2002) iv. v. 343 As he sat..eating rarefied dishes off delicate porcelain, he hankered for the bully beef and beans on tin plates of the dugouts.