highbrow
highbrow adjective: intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated.
Adjective
highbrow
- Intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated.
- highbrow entertainment
- “He's so darn afraid you'll be offended if he smokes. You scare him. Every time he speaks of the weather you jump him because he ain't talking about poetry or Gertie—Goethe?—or some other highbrow junk. You've got him so leery he scarcely dares to come here.”1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XIV, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC
- Antonyms:
- lowbrow
Noun
highbrow (plural highbrows)
- A cultured or learned person or thing.
- Synonyms:
- intellectual, scholar
- Antonyms:
- lowbrow
highbrow meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
highbrow in Tamil
- அதி உன்னதமான கல்வியறிவு, அறிவுக்கூர்மை, பண்பாடுடையவர், மிகவுயர்வான கல்வி, அறிவு, பண்பாடுடைய
highbrow in Urdu
- دانشور, نک چڑھا, ذکی, ذہین, ذہنی
highbrow in Bengali
- উচ্চমার্গীয়, বুদ্ধিজীবী সুলভ, পণ্ডিতি
highbrow in Malayalam
- scholarly, intellectual, bookish
- അഭിജാതവാസനകളുള്ള, ഉന്നതാഭിരുചികളുള്ള, ധിഷണയുള്ള, ധിഷണാവിലാസമുള്ള, ധെെഷണിക, പാണ്ഡിത്യമുള്ള
- intellectual, scholar, academic
- അഭിജാതവാസനകളുള്ളയാൾ, ബുദ്ധിശാലി, ജ്ഞാനി, അന്നതവിദ്യാഭ്യാസമുള്ളയാൾ, വലിയ ബുദ്ധിശക്തിയുള്ളയാൾ, പടുമതി
More languagesFewer languages
- highbrow in Kannada
- ಮೇಧಾವಿ, ಪಂಡಿತ, ಅಭಿಜ್ಞ, ಕಲೆಗಳು
Synonyms of highbrow
Antonyms
Forms of highbrow
| plural | highbrows |
|---|
Origin of highbrow
A compound of the words high + brow, first recorded usage in 1875. Referring to the (by that time discredited) science of phrenology, which suggested that a person of intelligence and sophistication would possess a higher brow-line than someone of lesser intelligence and sophistication.
Words formed from highbrow
Questions about highbrow
- What does highbrow mean?
- Highbrow means intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated.
- What is highbrow in Tamil?
- Highbrow in Tamil is அதி உன்னதமான கல்வியறிவு, அறிவுக்கூர்மை, பண்பாடுடையவர். See Highbrow meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is highbrow?
- Highbrow can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near highbrow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: highbrow (page history and authors); highbrow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); highbrow (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Highbrow (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); highbrow (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); highbrow (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “highbrow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/highbrow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.