high-rise
Americanadjective
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(of a building) having a comparatively large number of stories and equipped with elevators.
a high-rise apartment complex.
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of, relating to, or characteristic of high-rise buildings.
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of or being a small-wheeled bicycle with high handlebars and a banana-shaped seat.
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(of pants) having a waistline placed at or above the navel, or at the natural waist.
high-rise chinos.
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of high-rise
First recorded in 1950–55
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.
Over time engineers ran out of surface area, which led them to begin stacking transistors vertically, creating complex three dimensional structures that resemble high rise apartment buildings.
From Science Daily • Mar. 5, 2026
The blaze was unusual in its intensity and duration, consuming seven of eight high rise towers in a residential complex.
From Salon • Dec. 15, 2025
When Ho Wai-ho and his fellow firefighters arrived at the scene about 10 minutes later, the blaze was already racing up the green netting and bamboo scaffolding covering the 31-story high rise.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 27, 2025
The Lakanal fire in 2009, in which six people died, “should have alerted the LFB to the shortcomings of its ability to fight fires in high rise buildings”, the inquiry found.
From BBC • Sep. 4, 2024
They were planning to build a low-income-housing high rise there.
From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride
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.
