Grand Poobah

Rutland Barrington, the original Pooh-Bah

Grand Poobah is a term derived from the name of the haughty character Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885).[1] In this comic opera, Pooh-Bah holds numerous exalted offices, including "First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral ... Archbishop ... Lord Mayor" and "Lord High Everything Else". The name has come to be used as a mocking title for someone self-important or locally high-ranking and who either exhibits an inflated self-regard or who has limited authority while taking impressive titles.[2]

In popular culture

Other uses

Look up grand poobah or poobah in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

See also

References

  1. This character was based, in part, on James Planché's Baron Factotum, the "Great-Grand-Lord-High-Everything" from The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood (1840). Williams (2010), p. 267
  2. "Pooh-bah", Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, accessed June 14, 2009
  3. "Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes", Grand Lodge Freemasonry site, April 8, 2004, accessed September 14, 2009
  4. See, e.g. episode #150, "Burlesque", aired November 6, 1979
  5. Magildahyde, Constantine. "The Misanthropic Humanist". April 2, 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
  6. Borschel-Dan, Amanda. "Meet the Jewish grand poobah of the First Church of Cannabis", Times of Israel, June 9, 2015

Sources


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