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View synonyms for highbrow

highbrow

[ hahy-brou ]

noun

  1. a person of superior intellectual interests and tastes.
  2. a person with intellectual or cultural pretensions; intellectual snob.
  3. the crestfish.


adjective

  1. Also highbrowed. of, relating to, or characteristic of a highbrow.

    Synonyms: pseudointellectual, snobbish, bookish, cultured, scholarly, intellectual

highbrow

/ ˈhaɪˌbraʊ /

noun

  1. a person of scholarly and erudite tastes
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


adjective

  1. appealing to highbrows

    highbrow literature

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Other Words From

  • high·brow·ism noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of highbrow1

First recorded in 1895–1900; high + brow
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Example Sentences

From demagogues like Tucker Carlson to highbrow thinkers like Notre Dame’s Patrick Deneen, the emerging right-wing line is that America’s core institutions have become captured by the left and must be seized if the country is to be saved.

From Vox

Perelman is certainly a benevolent angel in that collision between lowbrow and highbrow.

Ben Affleck was someone you were supposed to take seriously, someone whose work you were supposed to engage with sincerely, as highbrow art.

From Vox

It doesn’t really bother me that My Unorthodox Life isn’t as serious or highbrow as many of its predecessors in ultra-Orthodox entertainment.

From Time

For better or worse, we’re watching a genre step off its highbrow pedestal—one that supported it through the making of many classic and literally world-changing films, but also helped to limit its audience.

From Time

Plato argued that true learning must be more than what Deresiewicz calls “highbrow entertainment for the moneyed class.”

Turns out highbrow culture can be found in the sunshine state.

It's no longer the highbrow mecca of fashion it once was, after all.

For highbrow patrons who are more familiar with Tolstoy than Ivan Drago, head to the Russian Tea Room.

It's where you rub shoulders with the big boys and enjoy highbrow ambiance.

"They recently let me join a highbrow mountain club; but when I start for the rocks I hesitate," Deering resumed.

They reckon they're highbrow frontier cavalry and I guess the trooper won't allow a girl held him up.

Weren't there to be any cakes and ale in New York simply because a highbrow happened to be mayor?

She had met him at some highbrow affair—it was a reception or some such social maelstrom—and, yes, his name was Bowles!

Well, symphony—more of the highbrow stuff, I guess you would say.

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highbredhighbush blueberry