Highbrow

Highbrow

Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, "highbrow" is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The word draws its metonymy from the pseudoscience of phrenology, and was originally simply a physical descriptor. "Highbrow" can be applied to music, implying most of the classical music tradition and much of post-bebop jazz; to literature, i.e. literary fiction; to films in the arthouse line; and to comedy that requires significant understanding of analogies or references to appreciate. As the former buzzword has lost some currency and sounds slightly passé, its use now gives an impression of mild irony.

The first usage in print of "highbrow" was recorded in 1884. [OED|Highbrow] The opposite of "highbrow" is "lowbrow", and between them is "middlebrow", describing culture that is neither high nor low; as a usage, "middlebrow" can be derogatory, as in Virginia Woolf's unsent letter to the "New Statesman", written in the 1930s and published in "The Death of the Moth and Other Essays" (1942). According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the word "middlebrow" first appeared in print in 1925, in "Punch".

ee also

*Egghead
*Bluestocking

Notes

References

*Robert Hendrickson, 1997. "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" (New York:Facts on File)
* [http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/21/messages/42.html a message board post quoting the above book]
*Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern, "Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore" "American Sociological Review" 61.5 (October 1996), pp. 900-907. Extensive bibliography.

Further reading

*Arnold, Matthew. "Culture and Anarchy".
*Eliot, T.S.. "Notes Towards the Definition of Culture" (New York: Harcourt Brace) 1949.
*Lamont, Michèle and Marcel Fournier, editors. "Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 1992. Includes Peter A. Richardson and Allen Simkus, "How musical taste groups mark occupational status groups" pp 152-68.
*Levine, Lawrence W. "Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America" (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press) 1988.
*Lynes, Russell. "The Tastemakers" (New York: Harper and Row) 1954.
*Radway, Janice A. "Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire."
*Rubin, Joan Shelley. "The Making of Middle-Brow Culture" (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press) 1992.
*Woolf, Virginia. [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chap23.html "Middlebrow"] , in [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/complete.html "The Death of the Moth and other essays"] .


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • highbrow — highbrowed highbrowedadj. highly cultured or educated; pertaining to highly educated people; as, highbrow events such as the ballet or opera. [informal] [WordNet 1.5] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • highbrow — [adj] intellectual bookish, brainy*, cerebral, cultivated, cultured, erudite, intellective, intelligent, learned, scholarly, studious, wise; concept 402 highbrow [n] intellectual, very smart person academic, academician, bluestocking, brain*,… …   New thesaurus

  • highbrow — ☆ highbrow [hī′brou΄ ] n. a person having or affecting highly cultivated, intellectual tastes; intellectual adj. of or for a highbrow: Often a pejorative term …   English World dictionary

  • highbrow — high brow n. a person of intellectual or erudite tastes; an intellectual. [WordNet 1.5] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • highbrow — (n.) person of superior intellect and taste, 1902, back formation from high browed (adj.), which is attested from 1891, from HIGH (Cf. high) (adj.) + BROW (Cf. brow) (Cf. also LOWBROW (Cf. lowbrow)) …   Etymology dictionary

  • highbrow — ► ADJECTIVE often derogatory ▪ intellectual or rarefied in taste …   English terms dictionary

  • highbrow — [[t]ha͟ɪbraʊ[/t]] highbrows 1) ADJ GRADED If you say that a book or discussion is highbrow, you mean that it is intellectual, academic, and is often difficult to understand. ...highbrow classical music... He presents his own highbrow literary… …   English dictionary

  • Highbrow — High|brow 〈[haıbraʊ] m. 6〉 1. 〈Zeitungsw.〉 Zeitung mit einem besonders guten Ruf, seriöse Tageszeitung 2. 〈umg.; meist abwertend〉 jmd., der sich für intellektuell od. kulturell besonders gebildet hält [<engl. high brow „hohe Augenbraue“ bzw.… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • highbrow — high|brow [ˈhaıbrau] adj 1.) a highbrow book, film etc is very serious and may be difficult to understand 2.) someone who is highbrow is interested in serious or complicated ideas and subjects = ↑intellectual >highbrow n →↑lowbrow, ↑middlebrow …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • highbrow — adjective 1 a highbrow book, film etc is intended for very intelligent people who like serious subjects 2 someone who is highbrow is interested in serious or complicated ideas and subjects; intellectual highbrow noun (C) compare lowbrow …   Longman dictionary of contemporary English

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