Contextualizebeta

highfalutin

adj
/ˌhaɪ.fəˈlu.tɪn/US

Etymology

Possible an alteration of high-fluting. Another speculation connects the term with high-flighting/-flying. First appears c. 1839 in the Spirit of the Times.

Definitions

  1. Self-important, pompous

    Self-important, pompous; arrogant or egotistical.

    • It's only a matter of time before some highfalutin developer builds a huge hotel and ruins the scenery.
    • That one Cajun that moved to Austin is too highfalutin to come back to Livingston Parish. He's over there with that mean bread lady!
    • His speech was very highfalutin.

  2. Pompous speech or writing.

    • Don't write so much highfalutin next time.
    • "We will, we will," shouted the Puddin'-owners; but the Puddin' said sourly: "This is all very well, all this high falutin'."

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for highfalutin. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA