Adjacent Words

highfalutin definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: affectedly genteel [syn: grandiose, hifalutin, highfalutin, highfaluting, hoity-toity, la-di-da]

Merriam Webster's

also hifalutin adjective Etymology: perhaps from ²high + alteration of fluting, present participle of flute Date: 1839 1. pretentious, fancy 2. expressed in or marked by the use of high-flown bombastic language ; pompous

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & n. (also highfaluting) colloq. --adj. absurdly pompous or pretentious. --n. highfalutin speech or writing. Etymology: HIGH + - falutin, of unkn. orig.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

People sometimes use highfalutin to describe something that they think is being made to sound complicated or important in order to impress people. (INFORMAL, OLD-FASHIONED) This isn't highfalutin art-about-art. It's marvellous and adventurous stuff. = pretentious ADJ [disapproval]

Moby Thesaurus

Gongoresque, Johnsonian, affected, ambitious, arrogant, aureate, bedizened, big, big-sounding, bombastic, classy, condescending, convoluted, declamatory, domineering, elevated, euphuistic, extravagant, fancy, flamboyant, flaming, flashy, flaunting, florid, flossy, flowery, fulsome, fustian, garish, gassy, gaudy, grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, haughty, high, high-faluting, high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying, high-headed, high-minded, high-nosed, high-sounding, high-swelling, high-toned, highfaluting, hoity-toity, inflated, inkhorn, labyrinthine, lexiphanic, lexiphanicism, lofty, lurid, magniloquent, meretricious, oratorical, orotund, ostentatious, overbearing, overdone, overelaborate, overinvolved, overwrought, patronizing, pedantic, pompous, pretentious, proud, purse-proud, rant, rhapsody, rhetoric, rhetorical, rodomontade, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, showy, sonorous, stilted, stuck-up, superior, swollen, tall, tony, toplofty, tortuous, uppish, uppity, upstage, vaunting, windy