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big cheese

noun

Etymology

From big + cheese (“wealth, fame, importance”). Earliest use to mean importance from 1910.

Definitions

  1. A very important figure, especially a high-ranking person in an organization.

    • He’ll be meeting with the big cheese first thing tomorrow, to present his proposal.
    • I know. But it's his ship now, his command; he's in charge, he's the boss, the head man, the top dog, the big cheese, the head honcho, number one...
    • If not for all these bills and taxes, our income would more than suffice. I feel like a real big cheese, until everybody takes a slice!

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for big cheese. 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