Haughty means proud, and looking down on others. A haughty manner, a haughty stare, haughty and cold.
It is about bearing rather than achievement: a haughty person is one whose manner says they are above you, and the word is nearly always used from below. It comes from the French for high, and the spelling was reshaped towards English high.
1adjectivehaughtyProud, and looking down on others.
“The haughty waiter looked down his nose at our cheap shoes.”
haughty is a quality.
The old word behind it means high. Haughty is holding your head high and looking down on everyone from up there.
hooks ontohigh
Middle English hautein comes from Old French haut, high, from Latin altus. The spelling shifted towards high.
Proto-Indo-European
*kewk-
Middle English
hautein
English, today
haughty
Built from
From earlier hauty, haultic, with spelling change in imitation of English naughty and English high, from Middle English hautein, hautain (with -ein, -ain becoming -y through the form hautenesse standing for hauteinnesse; see haughtiness), from Middle English haute (“self-important”), from Old French haut, hault (“high, lofty”), from Frankish hauh, hōh (“high, lofty, proud”) and Latin altus (“high, deep”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA