subs. phr. (common).—A person of consequence, one high in authority or rank: used both contemptuously and humourously: see BIG-BUG. BIG-WIGGED = pompous, consequential. BIG-WIGGERY = a display of consequence or side (q.v.). BIG-WIGGISM pomposity.
1825. C. M. WESTMACOTT, The English Spy, 255. Dun or don—nob or BIG WIG—so may you never want a bumper of bishop.
1846. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, xx. We live among bankers and city BIG-WIGS, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. Ibid. (1848), The Book of Snobs, ii. Whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary—the great worshipper of BIGWIGGERY—has always struck me as a most undoubted and Royal Snob.
1851. CARLYLE, John Sterling, I., vii. And along with obsolete spiritualisms, he sees all manner of obsolete thrones and BIG-WIGGED temporalities.
1855. Household Words, xii., 250. All this solemn BIGWIGGERY—these triumphs, ovations, sacrifices, orations.
1859. H. KINGSLEY, Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn, xlv. So you are going to sit among the BIG-WIGS in the House of Lords.
1871–72. G. ELIOT, Middlemarch, xvii. I determined not to try anything in London for a good many years at least. I didn’t like what I saw when I was studying there—so much empty BIG-WIGGISM and obstructive trickery.
1880. A. TROLLOPE, The Duke’s Children, xxvi. ‘The Right Honorable gentleman no doubt means,’ said Phineas, ‘that we must carry ourselves with some increased external dignity. The world is BIGWIGGING itself, and we must buy a bigger wig than any we have got, in order to confront the world with proper self-respect.’
