Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🍿 Not sophisticated 🧢 A non-intellectual
lowbrow

lowbrow

6 7.2
Having simple tastes in books, films, or TV instead of serious art
  • adjective
  • /ˈloʊˌbraʊ/
  • Offensive
: [OFENSIVO] zafio
  • I don't want my juvenile, lowbrow taste in literature to become widespread knowledge.
  • highbrow and lowbrow

Like all these things like HBO was lowbrow quality content, right?

Examples

  • He prefers lowbrow television shows that do not require much thinking.

  • You know I have lowbrow taste.

    Purple Violets (2007)

  • Though his taste is described by many as lowbrow... it is his own.

    Zelig (1983)

  • Much like a modern TV show or any lowbrow action flick.

    Blog text (17)

  • My parents think his family is lowbrow and an example of what happens when you don't go to college.

    Blog text (34)

  • Comics were seen as this lowbrow entertainment with no respectability whatsoever.

  • I loved the way he described his music taste—"lowbrow music for smart people."

    Blog text (22)

  • You're left with lowbrow humor and throwaway plots, which aren't necessarily a bad thing.

    Blog text (6)

  • Many people enjoy lowbrow humor, finding it entertaining and easy to understand.

  • The festival featured lowbrow art that appealed to a wide, casual audience.

Synonyms

uncultured
vslowbrow
  • Offensive
3 5.6

Showing little interest in art or books and having bad manners

focuses more on social taste and everyday sophistication rather than formal intellect
uncultivated
vslowbrow
  • Offensive
1 7.1

A person who has little schooling or interest in the arts

refers more to common tastes rather than lack of learning
low-thoughted
vslowbrow
  • Offensive
1 9.9

Showing little intelligence and only simple ideas

highlights low cultural sophistication rather than low intelligence
lowbrowed
vslowbrow
  • Offensive
8.4

Shows little interest in serious art and ideas, preferring simple popular entertainment

is a more informal label for the same idea
Boeotian
vslowbrow
  • Offensive
9.9

Dull and showing little imagination or culture

stresses simple popular taste rather than plain dullness

Antonyms

highbrow
8 8.1

About art or ideas that serious, educated people like

How Cultured

highbrow
1 7.7
cultured
21 5.1
middlebrow
  • Literature
1 8.4
lowbrow
  • Offensive
6 7.2

Surface Forms

lowbrow positive
lowerbrow comparative
lowestbrow superlative

Morphology

lowbrow = low + brow (semi-transparent) = low + brow

The literal parts 'low' + 'brow' are clear, but the metaphorical meaning 'not highly intellectual' is figurative rather than a directly compositional sense.

Etymology

Lowbrow comes from brow meaning 'forehead', as in eyebrow, and from the older term highbrow, which suggested a 'high' forehead showed intelligence. So lowbrow describes tastes or people seen as 'not highly intellectual' or less cultured.