High

How to spell high

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce high

What does high mean?

1. adjectiveExtending far upward, or measured at a great distance above a base, level, or normal value.
2. nounA peak level, point, or value, especially a record maximum.

High in a sentence

• adjective

  The office tower was too high for the small camera to capture in one frame.

• noun

  The share price reached a new high before the markets closed.

• adjective

  Interest rates remained unusually high throughout the year.

• noun

  Temperatures hit a record high for the month of June.

Where does high come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English heah, which meant 'tall', 'lofty', or 'exalted'. It traces back to a common Germanic ancestor, reconstructed as hauhaz, the same source that gave German hoch and Dutch hoog their meaning of 'high'. The spelling once ended in a guttural sound, written with the letters that later became the silent 'gh' cluster familiar from words like 'night' and 'light'; over the centuries the consonant softened and then disappeared from speech, but the 'gh' remained frozen on the page. That stranded, unpronounced 'gh' is exactly the spelling trap, since the word sounds like a simple long 'i'. From its early literal sense of physical height, English extended the word in many directions, covering rank, pitch, price, intensity, and even mood.

How the word is built

• high (from Old English heah: tall, lofty), a single root word with no affixes