pooh-bah

/ˈpuːbɑː/

pooh-bah is the alternative form of poobah.

Meaning of poobah

poobah (plural poobahs)

A person who holds multiple offices or positions of power at the same time.
A leader or other important person.
- ‘I said pooh-pooh,’ Duxmann Pooh Bah said.1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 112
A pompous, self-important person.

Pooh-Bah (plural Pooh-Bahs)

(alternative) Alternative form of poobah.
- It is consequently my degrading duty to serve this upstart as First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one. And at a salary!...1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert; Arthur Sullivan, composer, […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC

From Pooh-Bah, a comic character in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado (1885).

What is pooh-bah the alternative form of?: Pooh-bah is the alternative form of poobah.
What part of speech is pooh-bah?: Pooh-bah is a noun.
How do you pronounce pooh-bah?: Pooh-bah is pronounced /ˈpuːbɑː/.
What is the plural of pooh-bah?: The plural of pooh-bah is pooh-bahs.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pooh-bah (page history and authors); Pooh-Bah (page history and authors); poobah (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-poobah.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pooh-bah.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pooh-bah. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.