high hat
noun
high hat
1 American
[hahy hat]
/ ˈhaɪ ˌhæt /
high-hat
2
American
[hahy-hat]
/ ˈhaɪˈhæt /
verb (used with object)
high-hatted,
high-hatting
adjective
high-hat
1
British
adjective
verb
noun
-
informal a snobbish person
-
two facing brass cymbals triggered by means of a foot pedal
high hat
2
British
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of high hat1
First recorded in 1885–90
Origin of high-hat2
First recorded in 1915–20; v., adj. use of high hat
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.
See Examples For:
"I get dressed up in my full regalia - lab coat, rosette and two foot high hat - and go door-to-door asking for signatures," he says.
From BBC ● Feb. 23, 2023
He drew maximum sound from a minimal drum kit, consisting of one snare, a bass drum, two tom-toms, four cymbals and a high hat.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 24, 2021
I was so inspired by Clyde’s rhythms that in a couple of years my tapping grew into drum sticks with a full drum set of high hat, cymbals, bass and snare drums, with lessons.
From Salon ● Feb. 18, 2019
That shifts the whole thing and that also shifts the drummer, because now on the high hat, he’s got different work to do.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2017
Oh, to wear such a great coat with large buttons and a velvet collar and a squashed-down high hat with a ribbon cockade in the band!
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
The first half of the new LP steers into candid confessions, backed by heavy synth and incessant high-hat; in “Blue Days,” Clasen sings, “My ego is evil / It’s coming to get me.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 5, 2022
When Metallica cuts an album, he asked, doesn’t the band go heavy on the high-hat?
From New York Times ● May 23, 2022
My eyes digest the immensity of fallen trees bracketing the trail, the high-hat shaped fungi that spring from trunks and the thick folds of lichen hanging from branches that obscure the far-off canopy.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 25, 2021
“My heart cold as the moon,” Freejacob raps over a high-hat that ticks like clockwork.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 9, 2020
I've had a few of the high-hat crowd down here to-day, and one of the hall boys who heard what went on between Randall and Treving.
From The Gray Mask by Wadsworth Camp
Yankee Doodle Boy hits pretty hard at Cohan's early days when, as a flip, conceited kid playing in vaudeville, he high-hatted stagehands, raised hell over his billing.
From Time Magazine Archive
She was moving along with us, her face peering over the half-lowered window, growing suspicious of movie stars who high-hatted their fans.
From Time Magazine Archive
Said a salesgirl in high-hatted Hattie Carnegie's: "A woman who bought six hats last year will buy only four this year."
From Time Magazine Archive
Anyway, ever since last year, when one high-hatted member was mugged while en route to the opera, there has been the feeling that to wear a silk topper is to invite trouble.
From Time Magazine Archive
All the noted campaign speakers assigned to our town were invited to be the Markleys' guests, and Mrs. Markley sent her husband, red necktied, high-hatted and tailor-made, to the train to meet the distinguished guest.
From In Our Town by Frederic Rodrigo Gruger
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
