as in aristocratic
of high birth, rank, or station
skeptics have argued that these dramatic masterpieces must have been written by someone more highborn than one William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon
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Recent Examples of highborn
The Bronze Age cemetery likely held highborn warriors, contemporaries of Ulysses, but perhaps a queenly mother lay among them.
—
Kevin West,
Travel + Leisure,
8 May 2026
In the dying days of the Russian Empire, highborn ladies would willingly cut the dirty fingernails of the peasant Grigori Rasputin and then sew the clippings onto their dresses like sacred talismans.
—
Gerard Degroot,
Air Mail,
25 Apr. 2026
That Zohran Mamdani was highborn is no secret.
—
Rebecca Traister,
Vulture,
10 Feb. 2026
But his background is closer to that of George, the highborn son.
—
Michael Schulman,
New Yorker,
2 Feb. 2026
Fans from America to Europe to Australia bought his books and flocked to his one-man shows, and his potent doses of humor and hard truth enthralled both the highborn and the humble.
—
Mary Ann Gwinn,
Los Angeles Times,
9 May 2025
Long shamed for being both mixed-race and illegitimate, Dieudonné needs a highborn bride to prove his worth in the court of Louis XVI.
—
Olivia Waite,
New York Times,
30 Apr. 2025
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
Kevin West,
Travel + Leisure,
8 May 2026
In the dying days of the Russian Empire, highborn ladies would willingly cut the dirty fingernails of the peasant Grigori Rasputin and then sew the clippings onto their dresses like sacred talismans.
—
Gerard Degroot,
Air Mail,
25 Apr. 2026
That Zohran Mamdani was highborn is no secret.
—
Rebecca Traister,
Vulture,
10 Feb. 2026
But his background is closer to that of George, the highborn son.
—
Michael Schulman,
New Yorker,
2 Feb. 2026
Fans from America to Europe to Australia bought his books and flocked to his one-man shows, and his potent doses of humor and hard truth enthralled both the highborn and the humble.
—
Mary Ann Gwinn,
Los Angeles Times,
9 May 2025
Long shamed for being both mixed-race and illegitimate, Dieudonné needs a highborn bride to prove his worth in the court of Louis XVI.
—
Olivia Waite,
New York Times,
30 Apr. 2025
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
Recent Examples of Synonyms for highborn
Adjective
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The Sound and The Fury Told by four narrators in a stream of consciousness writing style, this 1929 story describes the downfall of a wealthy Southern aristocratic family, the Compsons.
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Because of previous demand, over 20,000 people had been employed in buckle manufacture in the Birmingham area, but when this aristocratic fashion suddenly collapsed in 1786 on the eve of the French Revolution, their trade collapsed along with it.
Adjective
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The idea that, rather than taking your phone out of your pocket to open the Soundcore app to get all the settings, is a noble one, but it's replaced by taking your carry case out of your pocket, unlocking it, and then getting to all the settings.
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So did his friendly rival, John Adams, who wrote of his dream ‘…to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them.
Cite this Entry
“Highborn.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/highborn. Accessed 4 Jul. 2026.
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