Definition

Adjective phrase: - Excessively proud or arrogant; having an inflated sense of one's own importance or abilities: This idiom describes a person who acts with unwarranted self-importance, overconfidence, or conceit, often beyond their actual status, experience, or capability.

Usage

This phrase is used to criticize someone for being overly proud, presumptuous, or arrogant. It implies the person is acting in a way that is not justified by their position or achievements. - It is primarily used in informal, colloquial speech. - It often carries a tone of disapproval or annoyance.

Examples

Advanced Usage

• The phrase can be used in various tenses by changing the pronoun and the verb 'to be':
  • He was too big for his breeches. (Past tense)
  • They are too big for their breeches. (Present tense, plural)
• It can be used in conditional or hypothetical statements:
  • If you act too big for your breeches, people will start to resent you.

Variants and Related Words

• Too big for one's boots: An almost identical idiom with the same meaning.
• Uppity (adj): Putting on airs; behaving in a way considered above one's station. (e.g., )
• Conceited (adj): Excessively proud of oneself; vain.
• Overconfident (adj): Excessively confident.

Synonyms

• Arrogant
• Haughty
• Pompous
• Full of oneself
• Cocky (more informal)

Related Idioms

• Get above oneself: To begin to think one is more important than one really is.
  • Winning the award made him get above himself.
• Have a swelled head: To be conceited.
  • All that praise gave him a swelled head.
• Look down one's nose at someone: To regard someone with a feeling of superiority.
  • Ever since she moved to the city, she looks down her nose at her old friends.

Adjective

1. (used colloquially) overly conceited or arrogant
   • a snotty little scion of a degenerate family-Laurent Le Sage
   • they're snobs--stuck-up and uppity and persnickety