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• Pooh Bah
  Pooh Bah

  noun

  a person who holds several positions, especially ones that give bureaucratic importance.
• Pooh-Bah
  Pooh-Bah

  noun

  a pompous self-important official holding several offices at once and fulfilling none of them

Pooh Bah

American  

[poo bah] / ˈpu ˌbɑ /

Or pooh bah,

noun

1. a person who holds several positions, especially ones that give bureaucratic importance.

2. a leader, authority, or other important person.

   one of the Pooh Bahs of the record industry.

3. a pompous, self-important person.

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Pooh-Bah British  

/ ˈpuːˈbɑː /

noun

1. a pompous self-important official holding several offices at once and fulfilling none of them

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Pooh-Bah Cultural  

1. A self-important person of high position and great influence. Pooh-Bah is a character in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Mikado; his title is Lord-High-Everything-Else.

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Etymology

Origin of Pooh Bah

First recorded in 1880–85; after a character in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, who holds all of the high offices of state simultaneously and uses them for personal gain

Example Sentences

Driven from Peking, where he was Pooh Bah in 1922, by Super-Tuchun Wu, Chang seeks to oust Wu and President Tsao Kun and resume his lordly sway in the Capital.

From Time Magazine Archive

Behind the scenes, unknown to me, Pooh Bah had fainted, and one of his entrances had to be made by Pish Tush.

From The Secrets of a Savoyard by Lytton, Henry A.

It is a parliament of Pooh Bah, where anybody may be Lord High Everything Else.

From The New Jerusalem by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)

Descended from a primordial atomic globule, you know, like Pooh Bah.

From A Prefect's Uncle by Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)

He doesn’t know it’s only Pooh Bah speaking from different corners of the stage. 

From All Roads Lead to Calvary by Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)

Related Words

• celebrity
• dignitary
• luminary