middlebrow
Americannoun
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of middlebrow
Explanation
A middlebrow is someone whose tastes are neither highbrow nor lowbrow. They're somewhere in between. A highbrow is someone with classy, sophisticated tastes. A lowbrow is someone with vulgar, uncultured tastes. A middlebrow, therefore, is someone with tastes that fall somewhere in the middle. A middlebrow might enjoy both lowbrow and highbrow entertainment, such as the rodeo or the opera. Or they might enjoy things that fall smack in the middle as far as sophistication goes. If you like art that's about halfway between classy and trashy, you might be a middlebrow.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wood’s accessibility, to some critics, indicated that his work was middlebrow illustration rather than art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
Having dismissed pop culture as barely worthy of his attention, he moves on to his main enemy, middlebrow culture:
From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2026
America’s most middlebrow casual restaurant, with America’s squarest CEO, selling fried cheese and margaritas and fajita plates that you can eat off for days.
From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2025
In a moment defined by artificial intelligence, algorithms and the almighty tax break, by middlebrow convention, shareholder protection and Silicon Valley “wisdom,” “Magnolia” now reads not as a miracle but as an impossibility.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2024
Every now and then a racy book about lowlife—Tobacco Road, for example—would catch the public fancy, but for a surprisingly long time middlebrow fiction in America was about upper-middle-class life.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
