![\"big](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/bigcheese.gif\")
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If you’re a ‘big cheese<\/strong>‘, you’re an important, successful, or influential person, and\/or you have an important and powerful position in an organization. Alternatively you might be called, or call yourself, a big fish<\/strong>, big gun<\/strong>, big noise<\/strong>, big shot<\/strong>, or big wheel<\/strong> [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n Apparently the word cheese<\/strong> was used in the 19th century to mean something that was good, genuine, pleasant or advantageous. In John Camden Hotten’s The Slang Dictionary<\/em><\/a> of 1863 it is defined as:<\/p>\n \nCheese<\/strong>, anything good, first-rate in quality, genuine, pleasant, or advantageous, is termed the cheese<\/span>. The London Guide<\/em>, 1818, says it was from some young fellows translating \u201cc\u2019est une autre chose<\/span>\u201d into \u201cthat is another cheese<\/span>.\u201d But the expression cheese<\/span> may be found in the Gipsy vocabulary, and in the Hindostanee and Persian languages. In the last chiz<\/span> means a thing\u2014that is the thing, i.e., the cheese<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In Urdu \u0686\u06cc\u0632<\/span> (cheez) does mean thing [source<\/a>]. The same word in Persian (Farsi) means article, entity, item, matter, object, stuff or thing [source<\/a>]. In Hindi \u091a\u0940\u091c (c\u012bj) means thing, matter, object or concern [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n Some other interesting cheese-related from the The Slang Dictionary<\/em> include:<\/p>\n \nCheese<\/strong>, or cheese it<\/span> (evidently a corruption of cease), leave off, or have done; \u201ccheese<\/span> your barrikin,\u201d hold your noise. Term very common.<\/p>\n Cheesecutter<\/strong>, a prominent and aquiline nose. Also a large square peak to a cap. Caps fitted with square peaks are called cheesecutter caps.<\/p>\n Cheesy<\/strong>, fine or showy. The opposite of \u201cdusty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nowadays the meaning of cheesy<\/strong> has changed a bit, and means “vulgarly pretentious or sentimental”, “banal, trite or in poor taste” or “inferior, cheap and shoddy” [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n The expression big cheese<\/strong> first appeared in O. Henry’s 1910 novel Unprofessional Servant<\/em><\/a> in which it meant ‘wealth or fame’. The meaning of an important person first appears in The Olean Evening Times<\/em><\/a> in June 1922 as, “The big mayor of Olean fair, You’re the big cheese on the scene.” [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n In Swedish the equivalent of a big cheese<\/strong> is le stort<\/strong>, or a ‘big smile’, which certainly makes me smile.<\/p>\n What about in other languages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you’re a ‘big cheese‘, you’re an important, successful, or influential person, and\/or you have an important and powerful position in an organization. Alternatively you might be called, or call yourself, a big fish, big gun, big noise, big shot, or big wheel [source]. Apparently the word cheese was used in the 19th century to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,122,10,37,67,197,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-hindi","category-language","category-persian-farsi","category-swedish","category-urdu-","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20584"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20608,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20584\/revisions\/20608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}