high-toned
Americanadjective
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having high principles; dignified.
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having or aspiring to good taste, high standards, or refinement.
He writes for a high-toned literary review.
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affectedly stylish or genteel.
adjective
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having a superior social, moral, or intellectual quality
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affectedly superior
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high in tone
Etymology
Origin of high-toned
First recorded in 1770–80
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.
De Toth’s 1947 “The Other Love,” screening at 9:35 p.m., is also unsettling, though its genre is the high-toned weepie.
From Los Angeles Times • May 28, 2026
With its crisp acidity and bright fruit, this high-toned wine seemed more akin to Pinot Noir than to Malbec.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025
“The Gilded Age” has always plied high-toned melodrama as its chief asset, but Season 3 ripens the starched formality of previous episodes into succulence.
From Salon • Jun. 22, 2025
Wielding a double-barreled shotgun in his review for The New York Times, the critic Stephen Holden dismissed Sparks’s book as “treacly” and called the film “a high-toned cinematic greeting card.”
From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2024
Bushwick Avenue was the high-toned boulevard of old Brooklyn.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
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.
