Pooh Bah

or pooh bah, Pooh-Ba, poo·bah

[ poo-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.

  1. a pompous, self-important person.

Origin of Pooh Bah

1
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

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How to use Pooh Bah in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Pooh-Bah

Pooh-Bah

/ (ˈpuːˈbɑː) /


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

Origin of Pooh-Bah

1
C19: after the character, the Lord-High-Everything-Else, in The Mikado (1885), a light opera by Gilbert and Sullivan

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Pooh-Bah

Pooh-Bah

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.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.