UPSTART

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does upstart mean? 

• UPSTART (noun)
  The noun UPSTART has 3 senses:

1. an arrogant or presumptuous person

2. a person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class

3. a gymnastic exercise performed starting from a position with the legs over the upper body and moving to an erect position by arching the back and swinging the legs out and down while forcing the chest upright

  Familiarity information: UPSTART used as a noun is uncommon.

• UPSTART (adjective)
  The adjective UPSTART has 1 sense:

1. characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position

  Familiarity information: UPSTART used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UPSTART (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An arrogant or presumptuous person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("upstart" is a kind of...):

disagreeable person; unpleasant person (a person who is not pleasant or agreeable)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "upstart"):

smart aleck; weisenheimer; wise guy; wiseacre; wisenheimer (an upstart who makes conceited, sardonic, insolent comments)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

arriviste; nouveau-riche; parvenu; upstart

Hypernyms ("upstart" is a kind of...):

disagreeable person; unpleasant person (a person who is not pleasant or agreeable)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "upstart"):

climber; social climber (someone seeking social prominence by obsequious behavior)

junior (term of address for a disrespectful and annoying male)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A gymnastic exercise performed starting from a position with the legs over the upper body and moving to an erect position by arching the back and swinging the legs out and down while forcing the chest upright

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

kip; upstart

Hypernyms ("upstart" is a kind of...):

gymnastic exercise ((gymnastics) an exercise designed to develop and display strength and agility and balance (usually performed with or on some gymnastic apparatus))

• UPSTART (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position

Synonyms:

nouveau-riche; parvenu; parvenue; upstart

Similar:

pretentious (making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction)

 Context examples 

You've always been an upstart, and you've always been against me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have quite a horror of upstarts.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

But if he heard the tap of his wife’s stick approaching him, his talk would break off at once into the garden and its prospects, for she was still haunted by the fear that he would some day go back to the ring, and she never missed the old man for an hour without being convinced that he had hobbled off to wrest the belt from the latest upstart champion.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

If you had made bad taste your enemy, the world of fashion would willingly have looked upon you as an arbiter by virtue of your family traditions, and you might without a struggle have stepped into the position to which this young upstart Brummell aspires.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman; but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill'd them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is an upstart.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)