Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) snobbery, pomposity.

1848		L. Coombs speech 29 Sept. in Barlett Dict. Americanisms (1871) 286: A regular built fourth-of-July [...] Jefferson speech, making gestures to suit the highfalutens.
1864		J.R. Lowell Rebellion in Complete Writings (2008) 164: It is a curious jumble of American sense and Southern highfaluting.
1867		Sportsman 5 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [S]peaking of this ‘gusher,’ what a lot of ‘highfilutin’ and low abuse has the unhappy magistrate Mr Fowler been made swallow!
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 271: High-faluten, as it is frequently written, is almost always addressed to educated or half-educated audiences, who are supposed to appreciate bombast, big words, and high-sounding phrases, with or without meaning.
1881		Derby Dly Teleg. 12 Dec. 4/2: This, of course, is ‘high faluting’.
1885		Century Mag. (NY) Jan. 347/2: Nothing like short meter for taking the hifalutin out of stuff .
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Aug. 20/2: I fancy you are just a Yankee journalist, with a task for highfalutin well above the average.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Jan. 4/4: They should be fully conscious of the insanity of high-falutin’ .
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 22 May 2nd sect. 12/5: After all the high-falutin’ as to what Fisher and Co. were going to do for the West, their proposals boil down to a beggarly 25s. per head.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1952		W. Winchell On Broadway 14 Aug. [synd. col.] ‘They and their progeny go off alone.’ (Hifalutin’ for: They left with their kids).