Englishbig shot
Meaning: An important, powerful, or influential person.
Example: “Now that he's a big shot in Hollywood, he never calls his old friends.”
Origin: Descends from artillery. "Big gun" was the earlier English expression for an important or powerful person, attested through the 1800s and drawing on the obvious military fact that the largest guns decided engagements while smaller ones did not, and "big shot" followed the same logic with the projectile in place of the weapon. The phrase is American and early twentieth-century, and it acquired much of its present flavor during Prohibition, when newspapers applied it constantly to organized-crime figures. That association is why it has never been entirely respectable: a big shot is powerful, but the word carries a suggestion that the power is self-announced, recently acquired, or not quite legitimate — which is why it works so readily as sarcasm.
More English idioms
- feel blue To feel sad or low.
- blue ribbon First-rate or renowned; also, a first prize.
- boiling point The point at which one loses one's temper.
- born yesterday Naive.
- the bottom line The net result; the essential point or undeniable truth.
- bottom of the barrel The least able member of a group; the least desirable items from a collection.
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Words that look familiar in another language but mean something else entirely.
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