high-toned

American  

[hahy-tohnd] / ˈhaɪˈtoʊnd /

Or high-tone

adjective

1. having high principles; dignified.

2. having or aspiring to good taste, high standards, or refinement.

   He writes for a high-toned literary review.

3. affectedly stylish or genteel.

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high-toned British  

adjective

1. having a superior social, moral, or intellectual quality

2. affectedly superior

3. high in tone

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Etymology

Origin of high-toned

First recorded in 1770–80

Example Sentences

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

“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

Reviewer David Kipen celebrated Wallace’s “stupendously high-toned vocabulary and gleeful low-comedy diction, coupled with a sense of syntax so elongated that he can seem to go for days without surfacing.”

From Los Angeles Times

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

Today, the city of two million is an international gateway for travelers headed to famous ski destinations like Niseko, a high-toned village catering mostly to foreigners.

From New York Times