Englishbig wheel
Meaning: An important, powerful, or influential person.
Example: “Her uncle is a big wheel at the city council.”
Origin: Grew out of industrial machinery, where the large driving wheel of a steam engine, watermill, or piece of factory equipment was the single component everything else depended on — without it turning, nothing else in the system moved either. The metaphor took hold in American English during the late 1800s and early 1900s, exactly the period when factory owners, railroad magnates, and other visibly powerful industrialists were the public face of that machinery, and calling someone a "big wheel" carried the same faint mix of respect and gentle mockery it still does: acknowledging real influence while needling the person who holds it.
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- bottoms up! A call to drink; to empty one's glass.
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