Dictionary

hauteur en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /oʊˈtɝ/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ɔːˈtɜː/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /əʊˈtɜː/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Etymology tree French haut Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *-ōs Proto-Italic *-ōs Latin -ōrem Old French -or Middle French -eur French -eur French hauteurbor. English hauteur Borrowed from French hauteur.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Haughtiness or arrogance; loftiness.
   • “What's happened, young Herring?” I think for a moment he was about to draw himself up with hauteur and say he would prefer, if we didn't mind, not to discuss his private affairs, but when he was half-way up he caught Aunt Dahlia's eye and returned to position one. 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
   • Who ever went into a public office, and was treated, as he is very apt to be, with the most offensive hauteur by some saucy, well-paid official, without feeling the desire to kick him rising strong within him? 1842, Alexander Campbell, “Kickable People”, in Sketches of Life and Character, page 11:
   • I imagine the Dreamward’s Hotel Manager to be an avuncular Norwegian with a rag sweater and a soothing odor of Borkum Rif about him, a guy w/o sunglasses or hauteur […] 1997, David Foster Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group:
   • Sometimes the hauteur is nothing more dire than a kind of black-mother wit. 2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic, →ISSN:
   • [A]n angered motorist sounded his horn, but The Senator took no heed: not out of arrogance or hauteur but, simply, because he took no heed. 1992, Joyce Carol Oates, Black Water, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 31

Forms