High Faluʹtin or Hifaluʹten

Tall talk. (Dutch, verlooten, high-flown, stilted.)

“The genius of hifaluten, as the Americans call it … has received many mortal wounds lately from the hands of satirists. . … A quizzical Jenkins lately described the dress of a New York belle by stating that ‘she wore an exquisite hyphaluten on her head, while her train was composed of transparent fol-de-rol, and her petticoat of crambambuli flounced with Brussels three-ply of A No. 1.ʹ”—Hingston: Introduction to Josh Billings.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.