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

Pooh Bah may be a very able statesman, entitled to exert his legitimate influence. 

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

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 Hay, Ian

Perhaps there was never in America an instance in which a high official so nearly fulfilled the part of "Pooh Bah."

From James Otis, the pre-revolutionist by Ridpath, John Clark

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.

Related Words

• celebrity
• dignitary
• luminary