Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Extravagant, ambitious, or extreme in aims or opinions: Describes a person, organization, or idea that has very grand, lofty, or sometimes unrealistic goals, ambitions, or self-importance.
   • Moving upward or along at a considerable height: Describes something, typically an aircraft or bird, that is flying high in the sky.

Usage and Examples

• Describing ambitious/extreme aims:
  • The company hired a highflying executive to turn its fortunes around.
  • Her highflying plans for the project were met with skepticism by the more conservative board members.
• Describing movement at a great height:
  • We watched the highflying geese migrate south for the winter.
  • The highflying reconnaissance plane was barely visible from the ground.

Advanced Usage and Nuances

• The term often carries a connotation of risk, overconfidence, or being out of touch with practical realities when used to describe ambitions.
  • After the scandal, the press criticized the highflying culture of the investment bank.
• In a literal sense, it can simply describe altitude without negative connotations.
  • The highflying balloon drifted peacefully across the horizon.

Variants and Related Words

• High-flyer or High-flier (noun): A person who is or aims to be very successful, especially in a career. It can also refer to an aircraft that flies at high altitudes.
  • She was a high-flyer in the corporate world before starting her own business.

Synonyms

• Ambitious: Having a strong desire for success or achievement.
• Lofty: Of imposing height; or (of ideas) noble but often impractical.
• Grandiose: Impressive or magnificent in appearance or style, especially pretentiously so.
• Soaring: Flying or rising high in the air; or increasing rapidly above the usual level.

Antonyms

• Modest: Unassuming in the estimation of one's abilities or achievements.
• Low-key: Not elaborate, showy, or intensive; modest.
• Grounded: Sensible and realistic; or (literally) not in flight.

Idioms and Phrases

• While "highflying" itself is not typically part of a larger idiom, it is conceptually related to the idiom "fly too high" or "fly too close to the sun", which warns of the dangers of excessive ambition, akin to the myth of Icarus.
  • His highflying schemes eventually led to his downfall; he had flown too close to the sun.

Adjective

1. extravagant or ambitious or extreme in aims or opinions
   • they did not understand what had happend at the once highflying company
2. moving upward or along at a considerable height
   • some highflying fighter pilot fired a cannon shell into it