high-and-mighty

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high-and-might·y

(hī′ən-mī′tē)

adj.

Marked by arrogance; haughty and overbearing.

high and mighty adv. & n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

high′-and-might′y

adj.

haughty; arrogant.

[1150–1200]

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Adj.

high-and-mighty - offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power; "an autocratic person"; "autocratic behavior"; "a bossy way of ordering others around"; "a rather aggressive and dominating character"; "managed the employees in an aloof magisterial way"; "a swaggering peremptory manner"

autocratic, bossy, peremptory, magisterial, dominating

domineering - tending to domineer

high-and-mighty

adjective

Overly convinced of one's own superiority and importance:

arrogant, haughty, insolent, lofty, lordly, overbearing, overweening, prideful, proud, supercilious, superior.

Idiom: on one's high horse.

References in periodicals archive ?

Chang, a lawyer who worked for two decades in China, has written an impassioned book that rests on penetrating diagnoses and old-fashioned gumshoe reporting, conducting interviews with everyone from the high-and-mighty to the common peasant.

THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA

BRITAIN'S top royal autograph hunter took a swipe at the "high-and-mighty" Countess of Wessex yesterday after she twice refused requests for a signature.

"The Wessexes say they want to lead normal lives, but they still seem to take a high-and-mighty attitude."