Some words with five syllables can seem bookish, like orthographical, or scientific, like exteroceptive. Once you hit five syllables, we are entering upon the five-dollar word territory. Supercilious is a five-syllable word used to describe people who are arrogant and haughty or give off a superior attitude. It comes from the Latin word meaning “eyebrow,” and was used in Latin to refer to the expression of arrogant people, and this meaning was transferred to English.

Amusingly, the word supercilious was added to some dictionaries in the 1600s—a time when many Latin words were translated literally into English—with the meanings “pertaining to the eyebrows” or “having great eyebrows.”

This use is now rare enough to raise an eyebrow.