grand poobah
A person who is important or high-ranking.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“He acts like the grand poobah of the office.”
“You need permission from the grand poobah before you change the schedule.”
“She thinks she is the grand poobah of the neighborhood watch group.”
“The local grand poobah decided to close the park for the entire weekend without asking anyone.”
“The grand poobah of the tech department finally arrived to fix the server after we waited for three hours.”
“Everyone in the club stays quiet when the grand poobah stands up to give his weekly speech.”
“Despite his lack of actual authority, he carried himself with the self-importance of a grand poobah during the board meeting.”
first recorded 19th c.
From the character Pooh-Bah in the 1885 Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado. In the libretto, the character is a personage of considerable self-importance who holds nearly every high office of state simultaneously, a convenience that allowed the writers to satirise the accumulation of titles. The name entered the general lexicon as a term for a person of similar standing or pretension.
Last updated August 10, 2026