middlebrow
Americannoun
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of middlebrow
Explanation
A middlebrow is someone whose tastes are neither highbrow nor lowbrow. They're somewhere in between. A highbrow is someone with classy, sophisticated tastes. A lowbrow is someone with vulgar, uncultured tastes. A middlebrow, therefore, is someone with tastes that fall somewhere in the middle. A middlebrow might enjoy both lowbrow and highbrow entertainment, such as the rodeo or the opera. Or they might enjoy things that fall smack in the middle as far as sophistication goes. If you like art that's about halfway between classy and trashy, you might be a middlebrow.
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.
By rights, Macdonald ought to have been grateful that middlebrow readers were providing him a steady paycheck.
From Salon • Apr. 19, 2026
A middlebrow elite earning dominion over an appendage of government for no reason other than their familiarity and adjacency to someone more powerful than them?
From Slate • Jan. 20, 2025
This framing device, which has the clunky air of a middlebrow play, provides a convenient if stagy way of breaking down his biography into manageable parts.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 9, 2024
Like its competitor, House Beautiful, House & Garden was then a middlebrow publication devoted to recipes, D.I.Y. decorating and handicrafts.
From New York Times • Oct. 30, 2023
Every now and then a racy book about lowlife—Tobacco Road, for example—would catch the public fancy, but for a surprisingly long time middlebrow fiction in America was about upper-middle-class life.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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.
