highbrow n.
1. (orig. US) a clever person, an intellectual; depending on context there is often a nuance of jealous attack; thus highbrowism n.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 66: Highly educated highbrows of the plains like Beaver Tom and I called them lady Injuns. | |
| letter 21 Feb. in Pope Letters of Ambrose Bierce (1922) 131: So your colony of high-brows is re-establishing itself at the old stand. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Mufti 111: Are you reading all the highbrows? | |
| This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 60: Alec Connage [...] liked him in a vague way, but was afraid of him as a highbrow. | |
| West Broadway 40: Them books I had bought and those highbrows I’d been out with seemed stuffy and smelly and kind of unreal. | |
| Is Zat So? II i: Do ya wanna be a brow all your life – so that reg’lar folks can’t get jerry to a word ya say? | |
| Nottingham Eve. Post 27 Nov. 3/5: The editor of the ‘Live Stock Journal’ revealed [...] that the cow is a highbrow who likes good music. | |
| (con. 1920s) Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 755: That Parker was [...] A fake high-brow, lording it over every poor guy who came along looking for a job. | |
| Kingsblood Royal (2001) 141: Keeping up with the highbrows is worse than keeping up with the Joneses. | |
| Diaries 30 Apr. 75: He [...] indulges in pseudo-highbrowism about the policy of the theatre. | |
| Sweet Money Girl 27: He and some other highbrows in our crew batted around Beethoven. | |
| ‘The Express Families’ in England, Half Eng. (1960) 32: George is [...] Giles’s idea of a working-class highbrow. | |
| Danny Boy 100: The Portugees in good jobs snob them who live in Albuoystown, and the former, in turn, is snobbed by the high-brows. | |
| Llama Parlour 27: Okay, so I wasn’t exactly a highbrow [...] but I wasn’t a card-carrying yobbo either. |
2. (US) a kill-joy, a puritan.
| Flirt and Flapper 70: Flirt: What are highbrows? Flapper: They’re just a nuisance and prevent you from having a helluva time. |
In derivatives
ostentatiously clever; intellectually demanding.
| Proc. of Nat. Education Assoc. of US 252: The communities that most need awakening are incapable of finding utility or amusement in these rather sophisticated and ‘highbrowish’ affairs. | |
| Day By Day in New York 24 Apr. [synd. col.] New York audiences like to appear high-browish. | |
| Woodrow Wilson [ebook] It gave further proof to them that the man elected Governor was not ‘highbrowish’. | |
| Editor 99-101 34/2: Most people who don’t know the game, think that short story writing is an esoteric, mysterious occupation, that's highbrowish and unreal. | |
| Rehearsal under Moon 182: [The script is] full of very forced and highbrowish tricks covering a hackneyed plot. | |
| Theatre 4: A highbrowish revue, Oranges and Lemons, was being played at a Wednesday matinee at the Globe Theatre. | |
| Star-Portrait 140: Shyama is a quiet, retiring type. She seldom attends any public functions and prefers to stay indoors. That does not mean she is a stiff highbrowish type. | |
| Jazz 180: Does the very word "classical" make you nervous because it sounds so highbrowish? | |
| Guide of Soul & Mind 71: [The campus] hopes to be spicy without being frivolous; deep without being dry; religious without being sanctimonious; intellectual without being ‘highbrowish’. |