middlebrow

American  

[mid-l-brau] / ˈmɪd lˌbraʊ /

noun

Informal.

1. a person of conventional tastes and interests in matters of culture; a moderately cultivated person.

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middlebrow British  

/ ˈmɪdəlˌbraʊ /

noun

1. a person with conventional tastes and limited cultural appreciation

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adjective

1. of or appealing to middlebrows

   middlebrow culture

Other Word Forms

• middlebrowism
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of middlebrow

1920–25; middle + brow, on the model of highbrow, lowbrow

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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

See Examples For:

middlebrow

Wood’s accessibility, to some critics, indicated that his work was middlebrow illustration rather than art.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

Having dismissed pop culture as barely worthy of his attention, he moves on to his main enemy, middlebrow culture:

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

We learn that Babbitt, citizen of Zenith, “a mid-size, middlebrow city in the middle of America,” is not fat but extremely well fed, with a baby face marked by wrinkles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 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

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