Meaning
A rich and powerful person, most often one who uses wealth to gain political influence or whose pay and perks are seen as excessive. In British use it is aimed especially at overpaid executives and bosses, while in its original American sense it meant a wealthy campaign donor. Informal and pointedly derogatory, implying greed, privilege or unearned reward. Regional use: General English (originally American).
Origin
The term arose in American political slang of the 1920s for the rich donors, also called angels or big-money men, whom party machines depended on. Its classic definition comes from Frank Kent of the Baltimore Sun, whose 1928 essay 'Fat Cats and Free Rides' in American Mercury described the type as 'a man of large means and slight political experience' who has what the machine must have, namely money; Collins dates the term to 1925-30 as an Americanism. The literal image is a well-fed, pampered house cat, and editorial cartoonists made the metaphor visible by drawing fat cats as corpulent men in pinstripe suits and cigars. The sense later broadened to any rich person viewed as greedy or undeserving, and in Britain it settled on highly paid executives, as in complaints about city fat cats.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- corporate fat cat
- fat cats
- fat-cat salaries
Usage Examples
- The senator attacked the fat cats who expect favourable votes in return for donations.
- Fat cats in the City collected bumper bonuses while the pension fund collapsed.
- Voters are tired of tax breaks designed for corporate fat cats.