high and mighty

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high and mighty (comparative higher and mightier or more high and mighty, superlative highest and mightiest or most high and mighty)

1. (idiomatic) Overbearingly arrogant; ostentatiously self-important or self-aggrandizing.

   The high and mighty are to be found at the Fairlawn Country Club on pleasant afternoons.

   Ever since she was placed in the gifted program, she's become so high and mighty that no one wants to be near her.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 179:

     When Inanna returns she finds that Dumuzi has not been lamenting her but has been acting high and mighty in his seat of kingship.

   • 2023 September 2, Simon Schama, “The real Rino”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 1:

     For the swooning faithful, all the high-and-mighty talk of the rule of the law is of little account compared with the hot flush, the racing pulse, the pure yee-haw MAGA-hellion USA high they get from glowing in the radiant heat of the Strong Man.