Pooh Bah
noun
a person who holds several positions, especially ones that give bureaucratic importance.
Pooh Bah
American
[poo bah]
/ ˈpu ˌbɑ /
Or
pooh bah,
noun
-
a person who holds several positions, especially ones that give bureaucratic importance.
-
a leader, authority, or other important person.
one of the Pooh Bahs of the record industry.
-
a pompous, self-important person.
Pooh-Bah
British
/ ˈpuːˈbɑː /
noun
Pooh-Bah
Cultural
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
Descended from a primordial atomic globule, you know, like Pooh Bah.
From A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
He doesn’t know it’s only Pooh Bah speaking from different corners of the stage.
From All Roads Lead to Calvary by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
Ayling has departed from our midst, and rumour says that he is leading a sort of Pooh Bah existence at Brigade Headquarters.
From All in It : K(1) Carries On A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand by Ian Hay
It is a parliament of Pooh Bah, where anybody may be Lord High Everything Else.
From The New Jerusalem by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
His proper title should be “Grand Pooh-Bah and Lord High Everything Else.”
From Slate ● May 9, 2025
The Pooh-Bah of Oscar campaigning cannonballed into Broadway this year, as the lead producer of “Finding Neverland,” the over-hyped, over-miked musical adaptation of the 2004 movie.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 28, 2015
Donald Maxwell's Scottish baronial Pooh-Bah is immaculate, with veteran Richard Angas once again an affably ghoulish Mikado.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 1, 2011
Thus when he assumed office after his father's death in April, Baby Doc was widely voted the Pooh-Bah least likely to succeed.
From Time Magazine Archive
A legend in his own time, he was the sort of man who acquired multiple nicknames: the Pooh-Bah of Paris, the Little Man with a Big Stick, the Little King.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
