hauteur

From French hauteur.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /oʊˈtɝ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɔːˈtɜː/, /əʊˈtɜː/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)
• Homophone: auteur

hauteur (countable and uncountable, plural hauteurs)

1. Haughtiness or arrogance; loftiness.
   • 1842, Alexander Campbell, “Kickable People”, in Sketches of Life and Character‎^[1], page 11:

     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?

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     “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

     [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.

   • 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 […]

   • 2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic‎^[2], →ISSN:

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

• “hauteur”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “hauteur, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “hauteur”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “hauteur”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “hauteur” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2025.

From haut +‎ -eur.

• ^{(aspirated h)} IPA^(key): /o.tœʁ/

• Audio (Paris); “la hauteur”:

  (file)

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

hauteur f (plural hauteurs)

1. height, altitude

   La hauteur du Mont Everest est de 8.848 mètres.

   The height of Mount Everest is 8,848 meters.

2. arrogance
3. (geometry) height

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

   The height of a parallelogram is perpendicular to its base.

4. (music) pitch

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

• haut

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