too big for one's breeches
Học thuậtThân thiện
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
- (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