éminence grise
A secret or unofficial decision-maker.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“The old advisor is the éminence grise behind the company's success.”
“The mayor's brother is the éminence grise who controls the city budget.”
“Everyone thinks the CEO runs the firm, but his assistant is the real éminence grise.”
“The retired professor acts as an éminence grise, secretly guiding the department's hiring decisions from his home.”
“While the young director gets all the credit, her father remains the éminence grise who chooses every project the studio funds.”
“Though she held no official title, the veteran diplomat had become an éminence grise whose quiet counsel shaped foreign policy for three decades.”
Borrowed from French éminence grise (literally “grey eminence”), originally applied to François Leclerc du Tremblay (1577–1638), also known as Père Joseph, a French Capuchin friar who was the confidant and agent of Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), the chief minister of France under Louis XIII (1601–1643). The term refers to du Tremblay’s influence over the Cardinal (who bore the honorific of Eminence), and the colour of his habit (grey, rather than the red of a cardinal).
Last updated August 10, 2026