hauteur

English

Etymology

From French hauteur.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /oʊˈtɝ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɔːˈtɜː/, /əʊˈtɜː/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)
• Homophone: auteur

Noun

hauteur (countable and uncountable, plural hauteurs)

1. Haughtiness or arrogance; loftiness.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     “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.

   • 1992, Joyce Carol Oates, Black Water, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 31

     […] as, indeed, a new subject presented itself now, "Here's our turn!" braking the Toyota and turning the wheel sharply without having had time to signal so, close behind them, an angered motorist sounded his horn, but The Senator took no heed: not out of arrogance or hauteur but, simply, because he took no heed.

   • 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:

     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 who throws open the pressurized doors to the Dreamward’s Bridge and galley and Vacuum Sewage System and personally takes me through, offering pithy and quotable answers to questions before I’ve even asked them.

   • 2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic‎^[1], ISSN 0028-6583:

     Sometimes the hauteur is nothing more dire than a kind of black-mother wit.

Further reading

• “hauteur”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “hauteur, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• hauteur at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “hauteur”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “hauteur” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2023.

French

Etymology

haut +‎ -eur

Pronunciation

• ^{(aspirated h)} IPA^(key): /o.tœʁ/

• Audio (France, Paris, "la hauteur")

  (file)

• Rhymes: -œʁ
• Homophones: auteur, auteurs, hauteurs

Noun

hauteur f (plural hauteurs)

1. height, altitude

   La hauteur du Mont Everest est de 8.848 mètres.

2. arrogance
3. (geometry) height

   La hauteur d'un parallélogramme est perpendiculaire à sa base.

4. (music) pitch

Derived terms

• à hauteur de
• à la hauteur de
• être à la hauteur
• hauteur de vanité
• prendre de la hauteur
• saut en hauteur
• sauteur en hauteur

Related terms

• haut

Further reading

• “hauteur”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.