little tin god

(little) tin god

A pompous person. My attraction for him waned after he spent the entire evening acting like a little tin god. Everyone on the school board acts like a tin god. It's so irritating!
See also: god, tin
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

little tin god

a self-important person.
Tin is implicitly contrasted here with precious metals. The phrase seems to have originated in Rudyard Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills, where he described idols that he thought were given undeserved veneration: ‘Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods When great Jove nods; But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes In missing the hour when great Jove wakes’.
1987 Fannie Flagg Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe This little tin God in the polyester suit and the three-pound shoes. So smug, so self-important, with the nurses fluttering around him like geisha girls.
See also: god, little, tin
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • (little) tin god
  • a tin god
  • tin god
  • tin cow
  • tin dog
  • roof
  • little
  • put the tin hat on (something)
  • put the tin lid on (something)
  • put the tin lid on something
References in periodicals archive
Plenty, though, saw it as restrictive, divisive and an additional instrument of leadership patronage - putting "paper crowns on the heads of little tin Gods".
Too few women, too many... Corbyn critics should make up their minds!
The independence of Gateshead, for example, matters to little tin gods in office but not very much, if at all, to the general public.
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"They've set themselves up like little tin gods, arrogantly sitting on panels that have the power to take people's homes and land away." Hanjy points out that many of the most important details of the RMAP scheme -- such as the estimated costs to property owners to bring their private roads into compliance with the ESA -- were concealed in confidential memos circulated among regulatory officials.
Private land lockup: federal and state agencies are, in essence, pulling the land right out from under the feet of private property owners as part of the United Nations' radical Wildlands Project. (Cover Story-Land Grab)
But I doubt if the poor girl is made to feel much better by the sight of her mum and dad being degraded and humiliated by a bunch of little tin gods from the social services, that monstrous Gestapo of political correctness.
Tony Parsons Column: Smack in the face for caring fathers
Doctors were treated as little tin gods. There was a tendency to talk down to patients.
WOMEN ARE TOP DOCS; IT'S A ROLE REVERSAL ON HOSPITAL WARDS
We treat those who can run, jump or place a ball in a net or hole, like little tin gods. Until they fail and we go on to the next big thing.
Joan Burnie: What did Eimar think paid for her lifestyle?
For too long we've treated them like little tin gods in suits, instead of fallible human beings who can, and do, make mistakes.
SCOTLAND THE KNAVE; Sin City idea is a winner