highflier

Etymology

noun

1. A person who or a type of aircraft that flies at high elevations.
2. (idiomatic) An ambitious person, especially one who takes risks or has an extravagant lifestyle.
   under the appellations of Tory, Jacobite, highflier, and other cant words c. 1711, Some Remarks Upon A Pamphlet, Entitl'd, A Letter To The Seven Lords Of The Committee, Appointed To Examine Gregg, Jonathan Swift
3. (fishing) A vertical pole used in commercial fishing to locate the beginning and end of a long fishing line.
4. (finance) A glamorous stock that potentially offers high returns to investors.
   Virtually all highfliers that I have seen over all these years of trading have crumbled at some point. 2003, Larry Williams, The Right Stock at the Right Time, page 93
   I like Canadian stocks and have done quite well investing in them, but you are typically better off buying a stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's leading exchange, than some of the highfliers in Vancouver. 2008, George Angell, Small Stocks for Big Profits
5. A swingboat.
   […] and high-flyer boat-swings, full of half-drunken men and half-mad, screaming girls, swing up to perilous heights, and all but whirl over, as if to shoot out the whole of their frantic cargoes! 1871, The Contemporary Review, volume 18, page 392
   A small copper-plate representation of Frost Fair […] Among the activities shown are Letterpress Printing, Copperplate Printing, a Sheep to be roasted, Ballad Singers, Swinging (in boat-shaped swings called the 'high Flyer'), playing at Skittles, […] 1980, Journal of Meteorology, volume 5, page 9