Word.ws English Dictionary

pooh bah

/ˈpuːbɑː/

pooh bah is the alternative form of poobah.

Meaning of poobah

Noun

poobah (plural poobahs)

  1. A person who holds multiple offices or positions of power at the same time.
  2. 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
  3. A pompous, self-important person.

Forms of pooh bah

pluralpooh bahs
alternative formpoobah
alternative formpooh-bah
alternative formpoo bah
alternative formpoo-bah
alternative formPoo-Bah
alternative formPooh-Bah

Origin of pooh bah

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

Words formed from pooh bah

Questions about pooh bah

What is pooh bah the alternative form of?
Pooh bah is the alternative form of poobah.
How do you pronounce pooh bah?
Pooh bah is pronounced /ˈpuːbɑː/.

Words near pooh bah in the dictionary

  1. poogle
  2. poogles
  3. poogyee
  4. poogyees
  5. pooh
  6. pooh bah
  7. pooh bahs
  8. Pooh sticks
  9. pooh-bah
  10. pooh-bahs
  11. pooh-pooh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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:

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.