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

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