See middlebrow on Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "From middle + brow, by analogy with highbrow and lowbrow. The term first appeared in Punch (1925) and was later used by Virginia Woolf (1930s) in an unsent letter to the New Statesman, published as a chapter in the book The Death of a Moth and Other Essays (1942).",
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"ref": "2000 September 21, Hal Foster, “Slumming with Rappers at the Roxy”, in London Review of Books, volume 22, number 18, →ISSN:",
"text": "What does a Princeton graduate whose old dream it was to write for the New Yorker do when that dream comes true, only to discover that his cherished magazine is no longer the middlebrow arbiter of high culture of his imagining, but just another media outlet frantic for its market share of mass culture?",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2017 September 29, “Winnie-the-Pooh brought joy to readers, but misery to the Milnes”, in The Economist:",
"text": "As in so many middlebrow period dramas, the vintage cars are too shiny, the clothes too smart, the upper-class accents too strained and the dialogue too contrived. However dark the plot becomes, the sun keeps shining brightly through the trees.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2018 August 26, Jesse Green, “Neil Simon Drew Big Laughs, Then Came a Cultural Shift”, in The New York Times:",
"text": "In the late ’60s and early ’70s, as independent films were diversifying their outlook and shaking off the formulas of Hollywood storytelling, Broadway boulevard comedies like “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” and “California Suite” — tales of the befuddled nouveau riche in a new world — began to look mass-produced and middlebrow.",
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{
"ref": "2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC:",
"text": "It's for this reason some regard Hanks with a sniffy attitude, seeing his middlebrow Hollywood fare as unfashionable (yes) and reactionary (no).",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between."
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"(derogatory) Neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between."
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{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"word": "中庸之辈"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"word": "mittelmäßig"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"word": "mäßig"
}
]
}
],
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{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "middle-brow"
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"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "middle brow"
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"word": "middlebrow"
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"glosses": [
"A person or thing that is neither highbrow nor lowbrow, but in between."
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"word": "midcult"
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"word": "midwit"
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"word": "no-brow"
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"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person or thing neither highbrow or lowbrow",
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"word": "Durchschnittsmensch"
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"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "2017 September 29, “Winnie-the-Pooh brought joy to readers, but misery to the Milnes”, in The Economist:",
"text": "As in so many middlebrow period dramas, the vintage cars are too shiny, the clothes too smart, the upper-class accents too strained and the dialogue too contrived. However dark the plot becomes, the sun keeps shining brightly through the trees.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2018 August 26, Jesse Green, “Neil Simon Drew Big Laughs, Then Came a Cultural Shift”, in The New York Times:",
"text": "In the late ’60s and early ’70s, as independent films were diversifying their outlook and shaking off the formulas of Hollywood storytelling, Broadway boulevard comedies like “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” and “California Suite” — tales of the befuddled nouveau riche in a new world — began to look mass-produced and middlebrow.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC:",
"text": "It's for this reason some regard Hanks with a sniffy attitude, seeing his middlebrow Hollywood fare as unfashionable (yes) and reactionary (no).",
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}
],
"glosses": [
"Neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between."
],
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"derogatory"
],
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"highbrow",
"highbrow"
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"lowbrow",
"lowbrow"
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"(derogatory) Neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between."
],
"tags": [
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "middle-brow"
},
{
"word": "middle brow"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"word": "中庸之辈"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"word": "mittelmäßig"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"word": "mäßig"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"New Statesman",
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"word": "middlebrow"
}
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"word": "midcult"
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"A person or thing that is neither highbrow nor lowbrow, but in between."
],
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{
"word": "middle-brow"
},
{
"word": "middle brow"
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"translations": [
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "person or thing neither highbrow or lowbrow",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Durchschnittsmensch"
}
],
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"word": "middlebrow"
}
Download raw JSONL data for middlebrow meaning in All languages combined (4.9kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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