high-hat

comparative more high-hat · superlative most high-hat

1. disdainful; haughty

   If she hasn't time for this or that, if she refuses to make or keep appointments, if her face does not greet all comers with a sweet and charming smile, then the word is passed around that ‘So-and-So is getting high-hat and up-stage.’

   1929 December, Betty Boone, “The Price of this Stardom”, in Screenland, page 22

   Synonyms: airy, arrogant, chesty, authoritarian, biggity, big-headed, blustery, turgescent

plural high-hats

1. slangA person who acts in a superior manner.
2. slangA large pill of opium for smoking.

   1 more example

   A young Chinese woman with a plait down to her waist bowed to them both and then continued cutting up the bricks of opium into smaller pieces. […] "High-hats. Five dollars a pound," he explained to Mannion, pointing to the large pills or 'pocks' that the girl held over a candle flame at the end of a long needle.

   2011, Dominic Lagan, The Coming Storm

   Synonyms: aunti/aunti Emma, big O, chandu, Chinese tobacco, dopium, dream gun, dream stick, fi-do-nie

3. broadcastingA low camera mount without tripod legs.
4. alternativeentertainmentAlternative form of hi-hat.

present singular third person high-hats · participle present high-hatting · participle past high-hatted · past high-hatted

1. transitiveTo snub or treat condescendingly.

   I don't high-hat technical words, because I know there a lot of things that can't be said any other way, but the doctor's lengthy explanation simply boiled down to this, that[…].

   1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam, published 1992, →ISBN, page 139