The Collaborative International Dictionary
High-toned \High"-toned`\, a.
High in tone or sound.
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Elevated; high-principled; honorable.
In whose high-toned impartial mind Degrees of mortal rank and state Seem objects of indifferent weight.
--Sir W. Scott. pretentious, pompous.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. Having a pretentious, high-class attitude
WordNet
adj. pretentiously elegant; "a high-toned restaurant" [syn: high-class]
Usage examples of "high-toned".
Well, suh, what was there left for a high-toned Southern gentleman to do?
In the case of my pardner it wuz fashion, nothing but the butterfly of fashion he wuz after, to act in a high-toned, fashionable manner, like other fashionable men.
Among them are many high-toned and respectable families, whose pride shrinks from begging for bread, and who now live a life of penury and starvation rather than become the mendicant.
In twenty-five pages of forthright, high-toned prose, Luce argued that gender is determined by a variety of influences: chromosomal sex.
You high-toned Charlestonians think you're the be-all and end-all, but you're not.
They were waking Julien, you know, and it wasn't really what you'd call an Irish wake, of course, because they were far too high-toned for that sort of thing, but there was wine and food, and the Judge was blind drunk naturally.
Look,' sez I, 'at the disgrace he brings upon a high-toned, fash'nable girl, at whose side he's walked and danced, and passed rings, and sentiments, and bokays in the changes o' the cotillion and the mizzourka.
I've seen old Injuns and squaws, young Injuns and pappooses Injuns along the sides, but this is where the high-toned bucks camp out.