rarefy

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to make a gas thinner or less dense

   Heating the enclosed air will rarefy it and lower its density.

2. 2
   verb

   to make something more refined, subtle, or specialized

   Years of debate began to rarefy the theory into a form understood by only a few specialists.

From Middle English rarefien and Old French rarefier, from Latin rarefacere 'to make rare or thin', combining rarus 'thinly spaced, rare' with facere 'to make'. The figurative sense extends physical thinning to intellectual refinement.

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