high
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: hī
ipa: /haɪ/
ipa: [haɪ̯]
rhymes: -aɪ
homophone: hi
homophone: Hi
homophone: hie
Forms: form: higher
form: highest
form: heigh
form: hi
Etymology: From Middle English high, heigh, heih, from Old English hēah (“high, tall, lofty, high-class, exalted, sublime, illustrious, important, proud, haughty, deep, right”), from Proto-West Germanic *hauh (“high”), from Proto-Germanic *hauhaz (“high”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewk- (“to elevate, height”).
Cognate with Scots heich (“high”), North Frisian hoog, huuch (“high”), Saterland Frisian hooch, hoog (“high”), West Frisian heech (“high”), Cimbrian hoach, hòach (“high”), Dutch hoog, hooge (“high”), German hoch (“high”), German Low German hooch (“high”), Luxembourgish héich (“high”), Mòcheno heach (“high”), Vilamovian huch (“high”), Yiddish הויך (hoykh, “high”), Danish høj (“high”), Gutnish haugar (“high”), Faroese háur, høgur (“high”), Icelandic hár (“high”), Norwegian Bokmål høg, høy (“high”), Norwegian Nynorsk høg, håg, hå (“high”), Swedish hög (“high”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌷𐍃 (hauhs, “high”), Vandalic *oas (“high”), Old French haut (“high”), Lithuanian kaukas (“bump, boil, sore”).
Senses: examples: text: The balloon rose high in the sky. The wall was high. a high mountain
text: Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole,
Those Quirristers are pearcht with many a speckled breast.
ref: 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 13 p. 214:
text: The Chitistone River Valley offers a more direct route for travel from McCarthy to the White River and the Shushana gold placers than Skolai Creek, but it involves a high climb over the so-called “goat trail” to avoid the canyon above Chitistone[.]
ref: 1930, Philip Sidney Smith, Mineral Industry of Alaska in 1928 and Administration Report:
text: Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.
ref: 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
glosses: Physically elevated, extending above a base or average level:
Very elevated; extending or being far above a base; tall; lofty.
examples: text: She was like a Beardsley Salome, he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry. His wooing had been brief but incisive.
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
text: A nightgown with a high neck and long sleeves may have the fullness set into a yoke.
ref: 1919, Martha Van Rensselaer, Flora Rose, Helen Canon, A Manual of Home-Making, page 376:
glosses: Physically elevated, extending above a base or average level:
Relatively elevated; rising or raised above the average or normal level from which elevation is measured.
examples: text: the pitch (or: the ball) was high
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Physically elevated, extending above a base or average level:
Above the batter's shoulders.
raw_tags: of a ball
glosses: Physically elevated, extending above a base or average level:
Pertaining to (or, especially of a language: spoken in) in an area which is at a greater elevation, for example more mountainous, than other regions.
examples: text: three feet high three Mount Everests high
text: I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
glosses: Having a specified elevation or height; tall.
examples: text: The oldest of the elves' royal family still conversed in High Elvish.
text: The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places.
ref: 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC:
text: Not a one of them was old enough to know what the high past of Liani separatism had really been like.
ref: 2007, Sheila Finch, Shaper's Legacy, →ISBN, page 122:
glosses: Elevated in status, esteem, or prestige, or in importance or development; exalted in rank, station, or character.
examples: text: the high priest, the high officials of the court, the high altar
glosses: Elevated in status, esteem, or prestige, or in importance or development; exalted in rank, station, or character.
Most exalted; foremost.
examples: text: high crimes, the high festival of the sun
glosses: Elevated in status, esteem, or prestige, or in importance or development; exalted in rank, station, or character.
Of great importance and consequence: grave (if negative) or solemn (if positive).
examples: text: high (i.e. intense) heat; high (i.e. full or quite) noon; high (i.e. rich or spicy) seasoning; high (i.e. complete) pleasure; high (i.e. deep or vivid) colour; high (i.e. extensive, thorough) scholarship; high tide; high [tourism] season; the High Middle Ages
text: High time it is this war now ended were.
ref: 1595, Edmunde Spenser [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “(please specify the sonnet number or title)”, in Amoretti and Epithalamion. […], London: […] [Peter Short] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC:
text: 1709-1710, Thomas Baker, Reflections on Learning
High sauces and rich spices are fetch'd from the Indies.
glosses: Elevated in status, esteem, or prestige, or in importance or development; exalted in rank, station, or character.
Consummate; advanced (e.g. in development) to the utmost extent or culmination, or possessing a quality in its supreme degree, at its zenith.
examples: text: to hear and answer such high things
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
text: Plain living and high thinking are no more.
ref: 1802, William Wordsworth, England 1802:
glosses: Elevated in status, esteem, or prestige, or in importance or development; exalted in rank, station, or character.
Advanced in complexity (and hence potentially abstract and/or difficult to comprehend).
examples: text: high church High Tory
text: Furder, what wil you answeare for your keping a daye, cessation &c to St. Michael & al Angells? how wil you excuse your self of most high idolatrie, advancing your self in thinges you neuer sawe, rashlie puffed vp of your fleshlie minde, and not holding the heade, depriuing others of their Crowne?
ref: 1591, Henry Barrow, A Plaine Refutation of M. G. Giffardes reprochful booke […], page 33:
text: The letter of a "Pioneer" was sent to the Chronicle office by a very respectable man, of a high conservative family, but whose interests have been injuriously affected by the constant fluctuations in the commercial policy of England.
ref: 1858, Joseph Howe, Speeches and Public Letters, page 346:
text: His family was ardently royalist, and might be compared to a high Tory family on this side the water; with some change of conditions, their prejudices and disposition of the mind were the same.
ref: 1875, Henry Reeve, “Introductory Notice”, in Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, Democracy in America, page xvi:
text: My father was the youngest son of a High-Church and high Tory family, the politically leftwing and religiously Nonconformist rebel; and antiimperialist who nearly lost his position in the City by refusing to sign his firm's pro–Boer War petition.
ref: 2005, Jesse D. Geller, John C. Norcross, David E. Orlinsky, The Psychotherapist's Own Psychotherapy, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 69:
qualifier: obsolete outside set phrases
glosses: Extreme, excessive; now specifically very traditionalist and conservative.
raw_tags: of an opinion or practice
examples: text: in high spirits
text: 1970, Grateful Dead, High Time, on the album Workingman's Dead
I was having a high time, living the good life.
glosses: Elevated in mood; marked by great merriment, excitement, etc.
examples: text: high living, the high life
text: I was living the high lifestyle in famous sex clubs, relaxing on luxurious sofas, in the saunas and whirlpools, enjoying moments of excitement with my male and female companions while sipping champagne from crystal glasses.
ref: 2010, Rose Maria McCarthy Anding., High Heels, Honey Lips, & White Powder:
glosses: Luxurious; rich.
raw_tags: of a lifestyle
examples: text: a high tone
text: An high looke, and a proud heart, […] is sinne.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 21:4:
text: His forces, after all the high discourses, amounted really but to eighteen hundred foot.
ref: (Can we date this quote?), Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641, Oxford: The Theater:
glosses: Lofty, often to the point of arrogant, haughty, boastful, proud.
examples: text: "Conversely, just because I am not high on positivity, it does not mean I am necessarily high on negativity."
ref: 2016, David Chan, Enabling Positive Attitudes and Experiences in Singapore, page 140:
text: I'm not that high about the relationship.
ref: 2010, Lena, quoted by S. Rosenbloom, The Multiracial Urban High School: Fearing Peers and Trusting Friends, chapter four
qualifier: with on or about
glosses: Keen, enthused.
examples: text: The sea is as high as ever. I shouldn't think any boat could put out today.
ref: 1939, Agatha Christie, chapter 11, in And Then There Were None:
glosses: With tall waves.
raw_tags: of a body of water
examples: text: high latitude, fish species in high arctic and antarctic areas
text: But other euphausiids, Euphausia crystallorophias, are found in the pack ice region of the high Antarctic as food of Blue and Minke Whales (Marr, 1956). E. vallentini is very important in the lower Antarctic region, around […]
ref: 1966, Symposium on Antarctic Oceanography: Papers, page 242:
text: We predict that L. arctica will coincide with the whole reindeer-caribou distribution, probably excepted Svalbard, South Georgia and other high-polar areas.
ref: 1990, International Union of Game Biologists, Transactions, the XIXth IUGB Congress: Population dynamics, Congress, page 219:
text: […] petrels, which breed primarily in the high Antarctic, the Rauer Islands are fairly central in their breeding distribution. This study documents the breeding biology of these four species of fulmarine petrels on Hop Island, Rauer Islands during […]
ref: 1999, Peter John Hodum, Foraging Ecology and Reproductive Energetics of Antarctic Fulmarine Petrels, page 8:
text: Except for some lithodid crabs that have recently been found in the Antarctic Bellingshausen Sea (Klages et al., 1995; Arana and Retamal, 2000), reptants are not known from high polar areas, where water temperature at the seafloor drops permanently below about 0°C.
ref: 2004, Berichte zur Polar- und Meeresforschung, volumes 481-483, page 1:
text: This study also analyzed the sources of variations over an environmental gradient extending from low (subtropical) to high (sub-Antarctic) latitudes.
ref: 2007, Zoological Studies, volume 46, iissues 1-3, page 371
glosses: Remote (to the north or south) from the equator; situated at (or constituting) a latitude which is expressed by a large number.
examples: text: My bank charges me a high interest rate.
text: I was running a high temperature and had high cholesterol.
text: high voltage high prices high winds a high number
text: Can heavenly minds such high resentment show?
ref: 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: Ignition voltage needs to be high enough to overcome the high resistance created by the air gap.
ref: 2005, Tracy Martin, How To Diagnose and Repair Automotive Electrical Systems, page 16:
text: The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail.
ref: 2013 July-August, Fenella Saunders, “Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture”, in American Scientist:
text: Studies also show that absentee ballots cast by voters who are younger or from racial and ethnic minority groups are rejected at higher rates than other absentee ballots.
ref: 2020 September 14, Richard H. Pildes, “The three words that can avert an election nightmare”, in CNN:
text: Anyone can determine for himself whether certain wire is high carbon or not. Heat a piece of the wire red hot and while red plunge into water till cold.
ref: 1907, The American Exporter, volume 60, page 101:
glosses: Large, great (in amount or quantity, value, force, energy, etc).
examples: text: Carrots are high in vitamin A. made from a high-copper alloy
glosses: Large, great (in amount or quantity, value, force, energy, etc).
Having a large or comparatively larger concentration of (a substance, which is often but not always linked by "in" when predicative).
examples: text: The note was too high for her to sing.
qualifier: acoustics
glosses: Acute or shrill in pitch, due to being of greater frequency, i.e. produced by more rapid vibrations (wave oscillations).
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
phonetics
phonology
sciences
glosses: Made with some part of the tongue positioned high in the mouth, relatively close to the palate.
examples: text: I have KT742 of the same suit. In other words, a K-high flush.
text: 9-high straight = 98765 unsuited
text: Royal Flush = AKQJT suited = A-high straight flush
topics: card-games
games
poker
glosses: Greater in value than other cards, denominations, suits, etc.
Having the highest rank in a straight, flush or straight flush.
examples: text: North's hand was high. East was in trouble.
text: Cutler pushed forward the two necessary white chips. No one's hand was high, and Loomis made a slight winning.
ref: 1894, Harper's Magazine, volume 88, page 910:
topics: card-games
games
glosses: Greater in value than other cards, denominations, suits, etc.
Winning; able to take a trick, win a round, etc.
raw_tags: of a card or hand
examples: text: Epicures do not cook game before it is high.
text: The tailor liked his meat high.
text: What he did know was this: something about the situation smelled wrong. Something about it smelled as high as dead fish that have spent three days in the hot sun.
ref: 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things:
qualifier: especially venison
glosses: Strong-scented; slightly tainted/spoiled; beginning to decompose.
raw_tags: of meat
examples: text: "Three extremely high people showing up at the animal shelter like WE FOUND A DOG would be really funny, but..."
ref: 2018, Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content (webcomic), 3879: Pointy Boi:
glosses: Intoxicated; under the influence of a mood-altering drug, formerly usually alcohol, but now (from the mid-20th century) usually not alcohol but rather marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc.
examples: text: NO NEARER! (arrive! Fr.) the command given by the pilot of quarter-master, to the helmsman, to steer the ship no higher to the direction of the wind than the sails will operate to advance the ship in her course.
ref: 1784, William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine: Or, A Copious Explanation:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: Near, in its direction of travel, to the (direction of the) wind.
raw_tags: of a sailing ship
examples: text: Our defensive line is too high.
qualifier: sports such as soccer
glosses: Positioned up the field, towards the opposing team's goal.
Synonyms: word: haute
word: hawt
word: tall
sense: intoxicated
word: stoned
word: drunk
Hyponyms: chest-high
knee-high
sky-high
super-high
thigh-high
ultra-high
waist-high
Derived terms: ace-high
ahigh
aim high
ankle-high
ask how high when someone says jump
at the high port
blow sky high
Bowland Forest High
come hell or high water
come high
contact high
fly high
for the high jump
friends in higher places
friends in high places
on high
get high
get off one's high horse
happy as a clam at high water
have high hopes
headhigh
height
heighth
hell or high water
helper's high
High Abbotside
high-accuracy
high adventure
high altar
high and dry
high and low
High and Low Bishopside
high and mighty
high and tight
high angel
high anion gap metabolic acidosis
high as a Georgia pine
high as a kite
high as giraffe pussy
highback
highbacked
high-backed
high bailiff
highball
high bar
High Barnet
High Beach
high beam
high-beam
high beams
High Beech
High Bentham
highbie
high-binder
highbishop
high bit
High Blantyre
high blood
high blood pressure
high-blown
high-boiling
high-born
highborn
highbred
High Bridge
High Brooms
highbrow
high-budget
highbush
high button shoe
high C
high-calorie
high camp
high card
high-card
high-center
high center
high centered
high-centered
high centre
high-centre
high centred
high-centred
high chair
highchair
high challenge
high-cheekboner
high-church
high churchman
high churchmanship
high-class
high cockalorum
High Cogges
high color
high colour
high comedy
high comma
high command
high commissioner
high-concept
high concept
high-context culture
high context culture
high-cost
high cotton
high countertenor
high country
high court
high crawl
high crime
high cross
high cube
high culture
highcut
high-daddy
highday
high days and holidays
high-def
high definition
high-definition
high-definition television
high-density
high-density lipoprotein
high dependency unit
high doh
high drama
High Easter
high end
high-end
high-endness
high-energy
high-entropy alloy
high entropy alloy
high explosive
high-falutin
highfalutin
high falutin'
high falutin
high-falutin'
high-faluting
high faluting
high falution
high fantasy
high fashion
high-fat
highfather
high-fed
high-fiber
high fidelity
high-finished
high-finned dragonet
high five
high-five
high flier
high-flier
high-flown
high-flyer
high flyer
high-flying
high Fowler's
high-frequency
high frequency
high-frequency gravitational wave
high frequency gravitational wave
high-frequency trading
high frontier
high-fructose corn syrup
high fructose corn syrup
high-fructose maize syrup
high-functioning autism
high functioning
high-functioning
highgate
High German
high-gloss
high-go
high-grade
high grinding
high ground
high-grown
high-growth
High Halden
High Halstow
High Ham
high-handed
high-handedly
high-handedness
high-hanging fruit
High Harrington
high-hat
high hat
high-hearted
highhearted
high-heartedly
high-heartedness
high-heel
high heel
high-heeled
high heels
high-holder
high-hole
high hopes
high horse
high hundreds
high-impact
high-income
high-intensity interval training
high intensity training
high-IQ
highish
high island
High Island
high-jimmy-knacker
high jinks
High John root
high juice
high-jump
high jump
high jumper
high-jumper
high-key
High Kilburn
high-kilted
high-king
high king
high kingship
highland
Highland
highlands
Highlands
highleg
High Legh
high-level
high-level language
high licence
high license
high life
highlife
high-lift device
highlight
highline
high line
highlining
High Littleton
high lonesome sound
high-low
highlow
high-low split
highly
high-lying
high-maintenance
highman
high-marking
High Marnham
high-masking
High Mass
high mass
high-melting
high memory area
high milling
high-minded
high-mindedly
high-mindedness
high modernism
high modernity
highmost
high-muck-a-muck
high muckamuck
high muckety-muck
high-necked
high nellie
high nelly
high-nelly
Highness
highness
high noon
High North
high-nosed
high note
high occupancy vehicle
high-occupancy vehicle
high-occupancy vehicle lane
high-octane
high off the hog
high old time
High Ongar
high on life
high on one's own supply
high on the hog
high on the totem pole
High Orchard
high order bit
high pad
highpad
high-paid
High Park
high-pass
highpass
High Peak
high-performance
high-performance liquid chromatography
high pillow
high-pitch
high-pitched
high place
High Plains
High Point
high point
highpoint
high politics
high-post
high-power
high-powered
high-precision
high-pressure
high-pressure liquid chromatography
high-priced
high priest
high priestess
high-priestly
high probability trade
high profile
high-profile
high-proof
High Prussian
high-quality
high-ranking
highreaching
high relief
high-rent
high-res
high-resolution
high-rise
high-riser
high-rise syndrome
high-risk
high road
high-roller
high roller
high scaler
high school
high schooler
high school student
high score
high score table
high-score table
high sea
high seas
high season
high-seeded
high shelf
high sheriff
high-side
high side
high-sighted
high sign
high society
high-sounding
high-spec
high speed
high-speed
high-speed rail
high-speed steel
high speed steel
high-spirited
high-spiritedness
high spirits
highspot
high-stakes
highstand
high-status
high steel
high-step
high-stepper
high-stepping
high-stick
high-sticking
high-stomached
high strangeness
high street
High Street
high striker
high strikes
high-strung
high summer
high-support
high surrogate
high-T
high table
high tackle
hightail
high-tail
high-tailed
high-tail it
high-taper
high taper
high tea
high-tech
high tech
high-techness
high technology
high-temperature superconductivity
high-temperature superconductor
high-tempo
high ten
high tension
high-tension
high-test
high-test peroxide
highth
high-ticket
high tide
hightide
high tider
high time
high-time
high toby
high-toned
high top
high-top
high-touch
high touch
High Town
Hightown
high treason
high tunnel
high undern
high up
high-up
high vacuum
high-value
high-value target
Highveld
high-vis
high-visibility
high-voltage
high voltage
high-voltage transmission line
highwall
high-water
high water
highwater
high-water mark
high waters
highway
High Westwood
high-wheeler
high wine
high-wire
high wire
highwire
high-wire walker
high-wrought
highwrought
High Wycombe
high yaller
high yellow
high-yield
high yo-yo
hit the high notes
hold one's head high
hot and high
I have high blood pressure
in high dudgeon
in high feather
in high gear
junior high school
Kilburn High and Low
knee high
knee-high blackberry
knee-high by the Fourth of July
knee-high to a grasshopper
leave someone high and dry
letter-high
logic high
Mile High City
Mile High Club
moral high ground
Most High
mount the high horse
nonhigh
Omaha high-low split
on one's high horse
on the high rope
on the high ropes
paleo-high
ride high
ride the high horse
rower's high
run high
runner's high
semihigh
senior high school
Siberian high
South Leigh and High Cogges
stink to high heaven
sugar high
superhigh
super high frequency
Thirkleby High and Low with Osgodby
three-high
to high heaven
type-high
ultrahigh
ultra high frequency
unhigh
union high school
very high frequency
white coat high blood pressure
with a high arm
with a high hand
with one's head held high
Related terms: mighty