highflyer

Noun

highflier (plural highfliers)

1. A person who or a type of aircraft that flies at high elevations.
2. (figuratively) An ambitious person, especially one who takes risks or has an extravagant lifestyle.
   • under the appellations of Tory, Jacobite, highflier, and other cant wordsc. 1711, Jonathan Swift, Some Remarks Upon A Pamphlet, Entitl'd, A Letter To The Seven Lords Of The Committee, Appointed To Examine Gregg
3. A vertical pole used in commercial fishing to locate the beginning and end of a long fishing line.
4. A glamorous stock that potentially offers high returns to investors.
   • Virtually all highfliers that I have seen over all these years of trading have crumbled at some point.2003, Larry Williams, The Right Stock at the Right Time, page 93
5. A swingboat.
   • […] and high-flyer boat-swings, full of half-drunken men and half-mad, screaming girls, swing up to perilous heights, and all but whirl over, as if to shoot out the whole of their frantic cargoes!1871, The Contemporary Review, volume 18, page 392
6. (UK, obsolete, slang) A writer of begging letters.

See all 7 meanings of highflier