Definitions

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

  • noun One who rises quickly to a position of wealth or success.
  • noun A stock that sells at a high valuation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A phaëton with low front wheels, arched reaches, and boxes over both axles.
  • noun A bird that flies to a great height; hence, one who is extravagant or goes to extremes in his aims, actions, or pretensions: sometimes applied in England to a genteel beggar.
  • noun One of certain geometrid moths: an English collector’ name. The ruddy high-flier is Ypsipetes ruberata; the July high-flier is Y. elutata.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who is extravagant in pretensions, opinions, or manners; one who is highfaluting.
  • noun a person of great ability and ambition.

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

  • noun A person who or a type of aircraft that flies at high elevations.
  • noun idiomatic An ambitious person, especially one who takes risks or has an extravagant lifestyle.

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

  • noun a person of great ability and ambition

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Twitter became an online highflier by letting users post 140-character messages that people started calling "tweets."

    Fowl Language: Companies Squawk About Who Gets 'Tweet' Justin Scheck 2011

  • Both ReachLocal and OpenTable—like another former highflier, Netflix —are hoping that growth overseas will now help them drive sales.

    No Groupon Therapy for Web Stars Rolfe Winkler 2011

  • In 1997 he hired AT&T highflier Joe Nacchio, who by 2000 had taken Qwest from 4,500 miles of fiber to 18,000 miles, an IPO and a $40 billion takeover of baby bell US West.

    The Man Behind the Curtain Christopher Helman 2010

  • The effort is the latest by Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz to jumpstart revenue growth at the onetime highflier.

    Yahoo Prepares New Web Ad Push Amir Efrati 2011

  • Mr. Silverstein also has his eye on Sycamore Networks Inc., a former highflier that has been struggling to recover since its fall but has been buffered by large holdings of cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet.

    Telecommunications Equipment 2011

  • He said "no one could stop me when I was in the air" and there seemed to be little doubt he would be a highflier in the NBA.

    A Knick Recasts His Game Kevin Clark 2010

  • Perhaps more shocking is the poor performance handed in by the state capital, Sacramento, a former highflier (now mired at No. 54) and San Diego, a high-tech haven with a near perfect climate (No. 48).

    The Worst Cities For Jobs 2010

  • Perhaps more shocking is the poor performance handed in by the state capital, Sacramento, a former highflier (now mired at No. 54) and San Diego, a high-tech haven with a near perfect climate (No. 48).

    The Worst Cities For Jobs 2010

  • Perhaps more shocking is the poor performance handed in by the state capital, Sacramento, a former highflier (now mired at No. 54) and San Diego, a high-tech haven with a near perfect climate (No. 48).

    The Worst Cities For Jobs 2010

  • Perhaps more shocking is the poor performance handed in by the state capital, Sacramento, a former highflier (now mired at No. 54) and San Diego, a high-tech haven with a near perfect climate (No. 48).

    The Worst Cities For Jobs 2010

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