Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who is somewhat cultured, with conventional tastes and interests; one who is neither highbrow nor lowbrow.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective pejorative Neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between.
  • noun A person or thing that is neither a highbrow or lowbrow, but in between.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who is neither a highbrow nor a lowbrow

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[middle + (high)brow and (low)brow.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

By analogy with highbrow and lowbrow. The term first appeared in Punch (1925) and later was used by Virginia Wolf (1930's) 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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Examples

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  • This must be what political pundits mean when they use the word centrist.

    December 11, 2008