| 释义 |
highbrow, high-brow, n. and a. colloq. orig. U.S.|ˈhaɪbraʊ|
[Back-formation from high-browed a. 2.]
A. n. A person of superior intellectual attainments or interests: occas. with derisive implication of conscious superiority to ordinary human standards.
1908Sat. Even. Post 29 Aug. 27/1 It takes all sorts of men to make a party, and Mr. Hearst apparently led in a few prize-fighters with the other high-brows and reformers he accumulated. 1911H. S. Harrison Queed iv. 41 Who knew but what this little highbrow was the very man they were looking for? 1914G. Atherton Perch of Devil i. 41 I'll be a real high-brow in less than no time. 1921H. S. Walpole Young Enchanted iii. vi. 301 There was the theatre (so much better than the highbrows asserted), there were concerts. 1922D. H. Lawrence Phoenix II (1968) 240 Then the highbrows come and say: ‘Poor Indian, dear Indian! why, all America ought to belong to him!’ 1925A. P. Herbert Laughing Ann 86 I'll be a high-brow, but I'll look hearty, And I won't laugh at the Liberal Party. 1934S. R. Nelson All about Jazz i. 18 The strangely disreputable lady ‘Jazz’—disreputable because she was not sponsored by the highbrows. 1955Times 23 June 11/4 The highbrows in those parts all go up in smoke or mist if you confess to liking those among their native artists who seem most typically Scottish.
B. adj. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a highbrow; intellectually superior.
1884L. Troubridge Life amongst Troubridges (1966) xii. 169 Mr. Hope had suggested that we would be at some highbrow part of the Exhibition—looking at pictures I think, but Jo had said firmly, ‘If I know the Troubridges they will be at the Chocolate Stall’, and we were! 1914S. Lewis Our Mr. Wrenn 42 All them high brow sermons. 1916S. Leacock in ‘O. Henry’ Waifs & Strays (1919) 161 Shakespeare, except as revived at twenty-five cents a seat with proper alterations in the text, is ‘highbrow’. 1917W. J. Locke Red Planet xxiv. 306 She'd die of culture in the mater's highbrow establishment. 1925Punch 22 Apr. 437/2 ‘The programmes are too highbrow,’ I maintained. ‘They are hopelessly beyond the intelligence of the mass, at any rate.’ 1931R. Church High Summer 12 Mother insists on my being highbrow and visiting all the historical places. 1943C. Gray Contingencies (1942) i. 41 The choice of programme was uncompromisingly what it is customary to describe as ‘highbrow’, but the house was packed on both occasions. 1963Auden Dyer's Hand 408 All highbrow—lowbrow frontiers of taste.
So ˈhighbrowish a., fairly, or extremely, highbrow; ˈhighbrowism, the condition of being highbrow, intellectual superiority.
1921Glasgow Herald 22 Jan. 4/2 This doctrine is tainted with high-browism. 1923A. Bennett Things that have interested Me II. 207 The audiences were artistic and earnest, with a dash of high-browism. 1926Whiteman & McBride Jazz viii. 108 Does the very word ‘classical’ make you nervous because it sounds so high⁓browish? 1927D. H. Lawrence Let. 19 May in E. & A. Brewster Reminisc. & Corr. (1934) 132, I can't stand high-browish..people any more. 1937John o' London's 1 Jan. 585/1, I am incapable of ‘highbrowism’, I make no pretensions to be a literary critic. 1947N. Cardus Autobiogr. i. 16 The..Bloomsbury-Chelsea highbrowism which does not understand that genius is a miracle to be revered. 1953Harper's Mag. Mar. 48/2 Articles. Books. Highbrowish stories. |