highbrow
Americannoun
-
a person of superior intellectual interests and tastes.
-
a person with intellectual or cultural pretensions; intellectual snob.
-
the crestfish.
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of highbrow
Explanation
Someone highbrow is highly cultured and sophisticated. You can call such a person a highbrow. Certain types of art are considered sophisticated, cultured, and respectable: like opera and classical music. Anything highbrow is usually intellectual in nature, and people who appreciate such things are also called highbrows. Highbrows usually have money and are sometimes considered snobby or hoity-toity. The opposite of highbrow is lowbrow, which refers to vulgar and less sophisticated culture and people. A book by a professor would probably be highbrow, while a book by a reality TV star is probably lowbrow.
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.
Besides the city's highbrow cultural offerings, its status as a centre of congress and diplomacy also helps attract a wealthy and worldly clientele.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
It was a culminating moment for a figure firmly of the 20th century, a celebrity possessed of moral force and highbrow sophistication.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
He reaped great commercial rewards with cutting-edge highbrow material—yet sometimes felt his audience couldn’t keep up.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2025
Just because something looks and feels like a highbrow, more considerate true crime offering doesn’t mean that it can’t be undone by the genre’s same trappings.
From Salon ● Oct. 21, 2025
And Volpe’s tastes, in fact, are not uniformly highbrow.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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.
