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

adjective

1. appealing to highbrows

   highbrow literature

Other Words From

• high·brow·ism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of highbrow¹

First recorded in 1895–1900; high + brow

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.

From Washington Post

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.”

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• cerebral
• scholarly