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Synonyms
Examples of highborn in a Sentence
skeptics have argued that these dramatic masterpieces must have been written by someone more highborn than one William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon
Recent Examples on the Web
Sawai starred as Toda Mariko, a highborn woman with an important role to play in a brewing civil war among Japan’s ruling council of regents.
—Joe Otterson, Variety, 16 Sep. 2024
Along a road lined with thousands of pagan graves and the multilayered catacombs of the Christians, the Gothic army traveled after the three-day sack, leading wagons bulging with loot and a contingent of highborn Roman hostages, of whom by far the most valuable was the 20-year-old Placidia.
—Tony Perrottet, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Jan. 2023
But unlike the sinisterly driven and chaste Eve—played by the highborn Anne Baxter, granddaughter of Frank Lloyd Wright—Miss Caswell uses her body to get ahead, providing a foil for the successful antihero.
—Sophie Lewis, Harper’s Magazine , 26 Oct. 2022
The banking dynasty’s founder, Mayer Amschel Rothschild of Frankfurt, a Jewish dealer in rare coins, began making loans and cultivating a highborn clientele in the 18th century.
—James R. Hagerty, WSJ, 11 Nov. 2022
Nannette, with her plain, angular face and hawklike eyes, wasn’t beautiful or highborn.
—Patricia Morrisroe, New York Times, 6 Nov. 2020
Live, Love, Laugh, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex
AVAILABLE ITEMS
PRINCELY AF sweatshirt (£80): Sharpie on a Champion-brand hooded sweatshirt—the perfect blend of highborn-lowbrow!
—Emily Flake, The New Yorker, 15 Jan. 2020
Modern Jerusalem was spared Disneyfication, first by the highborn culture of British colonialism, with its awe for the city’s antique past, and next by Jordanian paralysis, which froze the Old City as if in amber.
—Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2019
One is a seedy refuge in Pigalle, with rat droppings on the floor and a lone bullet, left in a drawer; another is a château in the countryside, with snow on the ground and a highborn family in residence.
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2019
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'highborn.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
13th century, in the meaning defined above
Time Traveler
The first known use of highborn was
in the 13th century
Dictionary Entries Near highborn
Cite this Entry
“Highborn.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/highborn. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.
Kids Definition
highborn
adjective
high·born
ˈhī-ˈbȯ(ə)rn
: of noble birth
More from Merriam-Webster on highborn
Britannica English: Translation of highborn for Arabic Speakers
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