as in intellectual
much given to learning and thinking
finally, a TV series that appeals to a highbrow audience
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in nerd
a person with strong intellectual interests
guests at her elegant dinner parties are a mix of the city's highbrows and captains of industry
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of highbrow
semafor.com, 16 Feb. 2026
From highbrow hotels to restaurants with rightfully tough reservations, Mystic is glowing up.
—Cameron Sperance, Travel + Leisure, 6 Feb. 2026
Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 22 Sep. 2023
Tár is its highbrow counterpart, teasing and celebrating the same personal crisis and class issues.
—Armond White, National Review, 27 Jan. 2023
See All Example Sentences for highbrow
Adjective
And the platform, which mixes highbrow political news sites with pop culture sources like People, has quietly emerged as a major force in the US information space.
—semafor.com, 16 Feb. 2026
From highbrow hotels to restaurants with rightfully tough reservations, Mystic is glowing up.
—Cameron Sperance, Travel + Leisure, 6 Feb. 2026
Noun
The roll call of films ranges from the highbrow to the decidedly grungy, the menu of a true movie fanatic.
—Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 22 Sep. 2023
Tár is its highbrow counterpart, teasing and celebrating the same personal crisis and class issues.
—Armond White, National Review, 27 Jan. 2023
See All Example Sentences for highbrow
Recent Examples of Synonyms for highbrow
Adjective
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Their feelings develop quietly, the burn paired with intellectual restraint, their romance remaining unresolved until far into the novel.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
3 Apr. 2026
-
Looking at a neck and imagining the scales and seeing the notes that work on the neck is more of an intellectual exercise.—
George Varga,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
Rather than lean into the chaos the challenge seemed to demand, Jane went cerebral.—
H. Alan Scott,
MSNBC Newsweek,
30 Mar. 2026
-
And the hour-long results that premiere on the platform Friday are a mix of the cerebral and silly that audiences have come to expect from the Problemista filmmaker and former Saturday Night Live writer.—
Mikey O'Connell,
HollywoodReporter,
27 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
Turner could not have known that his manifesto would define scholarly and popular understandings of American and western history for the next one hundred years.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
1 Apr. 2026
-
To be clear, there is little credible scholarly evidence that EdTech, in general, improves learning outcomes, and no conclusive evidence that generative AI improves learning outcomes over traditional human teaching.—
Dr. Timothy Scott,
Hartford Courant,
31 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Highbrow.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/highbrow. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.
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