lofty
/ˈlɒfti
/adjective (loftier, loftiest)
1Of imposing height: the elegant square was shaded by lofty palms...
- The 12 girls took to the lofty heights of Lugnaquilla to participate in a sponsored walk in aid of the Special Olympics.
- From the lofty heights of Neiphin Mountain, you can view the landscape from Keenagh all the way to Easkey.
- Giant yellow-poplars are remarkable for their lofty heights and barely tapering columnar shapes.
Synonyms
tall, high, giant, towering, soaring, sky-high, sky-scraping;
imposing, magnificent, majestic
1.1Of a noble or elevated nature: an extraordinary mixture of harsh reality and lofty ideals...
- The GGA failed to live up to its lofty and noble ideals due largely to the self-serving nature of some of its less progressive members.
- It is a world where nobody aspires to anything lofty, noble, or daring, and where nobody must love another when such love is fragile, mysterious, and hard.
- A noble and lofty goal, the setup is an interesting one but the actual action is brutally difficult.
Synonyms
noble, exalted, high, high-minded, grand, fine, sublime, elevated, worthy
1.2Haughty and aloof: lofty intellectual disdain...
- On no account is he an aloof, lofty person, but instead he eats and drinks with the Minjung, sometimes asking favours from them or vice versa, granting their requests.
- The conversational performance bar was high - not to any ridiculously lofty intellectual setting, but higher than I am generally used to in the general course of things.
- It has inspired essays by France's lofty intellectuals.
Synonyms
haughty, proud, aloof, arrogant, disdainful, supercilious, condescending, patronizing, scornful, contemptuous, self-important, conceited, snobbish;
lordly, grandiose, imperious, pompous, magisterial, overweening, overbearing
informal high and mighty, stuck-up, snooty, snotty, toffee-nosed, uppity, uppish, hoity-toity
literary vainglorious
archaic contumelious
2(Of wool and other textiles) thick and resilient.Because fleece is such a lofty, stretchy fabric, use a 3 mm or 3.5 mm stitch length.
Derivatives
loftily
/ adverb ...- Thirty students, including 13 girls, took part in the three-hour session, conducted in the serene atmosphere of the Gandhi Museum, which stands loftily for peace and non-violence.
- In the previous national elections it poured scorn on the idea of coalitions and alignments, going loftily alone, and came home with the worst electoral performance in its history.
- These loftily general values, in other words, hide some deep conflicts - conflicts that new technologies may not help us to overcome.
loftiness
/ noun ...- Such childhood enthusiasm ensured that the novelist later on would have to be punished with our indulgent contempt, before we eventually realized that our loftiness was more contemptible than his confusions.
- Anyone who believes that the loftiness of art is above politics, war and religious differences doesn't understand that artists live in the real world and don't hide behind their creativity.
- The loftiness, the breeze, the view, the sense of privileged isolation - I spent many hours up there, with friends or alone.
Origin
Middle English: from loft, influenced by aloft.