high and mighty
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Important and influential.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Buckinghamshire are playing Leicestershire … just the day for a game of cup cricket … just the day for the local people to come out and see if their team could knock down one of the high and mighty …
‘ Too high and mighty, he is, to call her ‘ Mam’, the way he should.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “Irreversible binomial” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29). Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “high and mighty” mean?
Important and influential.
Is “high and mighty” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“nghênh ngang” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.