beyond one's pay grade

prep_phrase

Etymology

Possibly from the correspondence of the pay grade to the level of authority in the U.S. civil service and in the U.S. armed forces.

Definitions

  1. Beyond one's level of authority.

    • 1971, Testimony before U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services, Sir, I think that is a policy decision only the President can make. That is beyond my pay grade.
  2. Beyond one's capability.

    • Figuring out how it would work logistically is above and beyond my pay grade and my brain power.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for beyond one's pay grade. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA