highbrow

Meanings

Adjective

• Intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated.

Noun

• A cultured or learned person or thing.

Origin

• A compound of the words high + brow, first recorded usage in 1875. Referring to the (by that time discredited) science of phrenology, which suggested that a person of intelligence and sophistication would possess a higher brow-line than someone of lesser intelligence and sophistication.