🌬️ To make thinner 🎨 To make abstract

to rarefy

9.9

To make an idea, art, or style more subtle and less direct

verb
/ˈrɛərɪˌfaɪ/

Formal

: sutilizar

The artist aims to rarefy her paintings by incorporating more abstract elements and subtle colors.

Examples

His writing style tends to rarefy everyday experiences, making them feel more profound and thoughtful.
In both instances, but more strikingly in the first, Gray has invested the local with the universal, rarefying complex personalities into tutelary functions.

Academic text (1997)
The speaker used metaphors to rarefy complex ideas, making them easier for the audience to understand.

Synonyms

to sublimate

vsto rarefy

1 8.6

To make something more refined or better in quality

focuses on subtlety and abstraction rather than uplifted quality

to subtilize

vsto rarefy

9.9

To make an idea or way of thinking more careful and sensitive

applies more broadly to changing character, not only thinking or perception

to rarify

vsto rarefy

Formal

9.9

To make something more detailed by adding small parts or ideas

is about subtle refinement or abstraction rather than added complexity

Antonyms

to simplify

99 2.5

Make something easier to understand or use

to coarsen

2 6.5

Make or become rough in texture and manners

How Abstract

to rarefy

Formal

9.9

abstract

16 8.0

to generalize

41 4.2

to specify

118 3.5

Surface Forms

rarefy infinitive

rarefied past

rarefied past participle

rarefying present participle

rarefies third person singular

Morphology

rarefy = rare (semi-transparent) = rare + fy

The formation is the same ('rare' + '-fy'), but the sense 'make more subtle or refined' is a figurative extension of 'rare' and less directly inferable.

Etymology

Rarefy comes from the old Latin word rarus meaning 'not dense' or 'thin', the same root as English rare. So to rarefy an idea or style is to make it more subtle and refined, less full of simple detail and more delicate.