Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rarefaction

Etymologies

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Examples

  • One of the young men was seriously alarmed by bleeding from the lungs, and the intense dryness of the day and the rarefication of the air, at a height of nearly 15,000 feet, made respiration very painful.

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 2007

  • These things seemed to be reasonably well urged; and yet it seemed that much might be said for the contrary opinion, and that it was possible enough to maintain that bulimy ariseth not from condensation but rarefication of the stomach.

    Symposiacs 2004

  • These things seemed to be reasonably well urged; and yet it seemed that much might be said for the contrary opinion, and that it was possible enough to maintain that bulimy ariseth not from condensation but rarefication of the stomach.

    Essays and Miscellanies 2004

  • This statical barometer suggested several useful applications to the fertile imagination of its inventor, among others the measuring of mountain-peaks, as with the mercurial barometer, the rarefication of the air at the top giving a definite ratio to the more condensed air in the valley.

    A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume II: The Beginnings of Modern Science 1904

  • Therefore, when they imagine heaven as consisting of an endless prolongation and exaggeration or rarefication of such pleasures as we know, they invite the retort, "And pray what would become of any one of our known pleasures, or even of our conceivable pleasures, if it were made everlasting?"

    From a Cornish Window A New Edition Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • For myself I can only say that the same exaltation of mind, the same rarefication of idea and invention, which succeeded upon my wedding day came upon me now.

    The Magic Egg and Other Stories 1884

  • For myself I can only say that the same exaltation of mind, the same rarefication of idea and invention, which succeeded upon my wedding-day came upon me now.

    A Chosen Few Short Stories Frank Richard Stockton 1868

  • For myself I can only say that the same exaltation of mind, the same rarefication of idea and invention, which succeeded upon my wedding day came upon me now.

    The Magic Egg and Other Stories Frank Richard Stockton 1868

  • One of the young men was seriously alarmed by bleeding from the lungs, and the intense dryness of the day and the rarefication of the air, at a height of nearly 15,000 feet, made respiration very painful.

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains 1867

  • We are slowly sinking, perhaps, from heat to heat, until entire rarefication and evanishment in imperceptible vapor ensues; and so the great experiment of a world may end in smoke, as many minor ones have ended.

    Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis George William Curtis 1858

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