Meaning
The most important or powerful person in an organization or scene; a boss, leader or grandee. Usually with 'the' ('the big cheese of the sales department'). Informal, originally American, and now dated or jokey in tone - often used with mild irony about self-importance rather than as a serious title. Informal and increasingly dated; jocular or faintly mocking of hierarchy rather than respectful. Regional use: American English.
Origin
American slang of the early 20th century. Etymonline dates 'big cheese' meaning an important person to 1914 and the extension 'to cut a big cheese', to swagger or look important, to 1915; Wiktionary's earliest citation is O. Henry's 1910 story 'Unprofessional Servant'. The often-repeated derivation links it to Anglo-Indian 'the real chiz': British writers in India had by 1818 used chiz (from Persian/Urdu chiz, 'thing') to mean the genuine article. Etymonline records this but explicitly hedges, saying chiz 'perhaps is behind' the expression while noting that big cheese is American in origin and 'likely rather' belongs to the ordinary dairy word - perhaps reinforced by the overlarge cheese wheels American dairies displayed as publicity stunts, such as the one President Taft was invited to cut at the 1911 National Dairy Show. The chiz story is therefore a documented but doubted theory, not established etymology, and entries should not state it as fact. The term peaked in the mid-20th century alongside 'big wheel' and now sounds quaint.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a real big cheese
- big cheese
- cut a big cheese
Usage Examples
- All the big cheeses from head office flew in for the ribbon-cutting.
- Apparently the new big cheese wants every report on her desk by Friday.
- He behaved like the big cheese of the neighbourhood, though he ran a single market stall.