English · Idiom Candidate

too big for one's boots

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Overly confident or arrogant due to one's success or status

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

quá tự tin hoặc kiêu ngạo do thành công hoặc địa vị

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: wearing boots that are too large

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

After getting the promotion, he became too big for his boots and started bossing everyone around

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Topics: Clothes

Common questions

What does “too big for one's boots” mean?

Overly confident or arrogant due to one's success or status Literally: wearing boots that are too large

Is “too big for one's boots” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

👁 Views 0 today 0 past 7 days 0 this month 0 all time