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pooh-bah

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Pooh Bah

  [poo bah]
Use pooh-bah in a Sentence
–noun (often lowercase)
1. a person who holds several positions, esp. ones that give him or her 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.
Also, Pooh-Bah, poobah.

Origin:
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
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Pooh-Bah or pooh-bah   (pōō'bä')   
n.  

  1. A pompous ostentatious official, especially one who, holding many offices, fulfills none of them.

  2. A person who holds high office.


[After Pooh-Bah, Lord-High-Everything-Else, a character in The Mikado by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Cultural Dictionary

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 American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

Pooh-Bah 
1888, name of the "Lord High Everything Else" in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" (1885).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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