fat cat
22
6.3
- noun
- /fæt kæt/
- Offensive
:
pez gordo
- The wealthy investors in the room were all fat cats who controlled the market.
- corporate fat cats
- fat cats and lobbyists
- fat cat bankers
If you grew up out in Edina Minnetonka with the fat cats, where Al Franken grew up.
- If you grew up out in Edina Minnetonka with the fat cats, where Al Franken grew up.
- The fact that they these just imagine like these, these, these, these middle-aged, you know, fat cats just decided, all right, what?
- And and you have this evil fat cat boss with a cigar who's got his feet up on the desk.
- He's this, he's kind of this fat cat that that's never been neutered kind of, you know, he just, it was interesting to watch him.
- It's it's one of those things where you know, you can't be a fat cat when you, you know, you just kind of like keep going because there will be lean times.
Examples
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Look at that fat cat Walker.
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And those fat cat politicians over in Washington up on the hill in their ivory towers they don't care.
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All these big oil fat cats, they think that they own this place.
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It's become a new business for those fat cats in government.
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We need more facts and fewer fat cats in Washington.
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We all pay so fat cats can impress other fat cats.
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Why do we send our tax dollars to fat cat bankers on Wall Street?
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That's a bunch of rich fat cats.
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We berate the workers that make a low wage and then we worship the fat cats that make all this money.
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In fact, you've always been opposed to fat-cat political patronage and the like.
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Synonyms
11
8.8
A person with power and influence because they are very rich
1
7.5
A person who is in charge of a group and makes the main decisions
1
8.1
An important person who makes key decisions for a group
A joking name for a person who has great power in a group
A person who has a lot of money
Antonyms
How Wealthy
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'fat' (connotations of largeness, abundance or being well-off) with a colloquial 'cat' for a person, so an informed learner could infer a general metaphorical sense of a 'big' or important person. However, the exact socio-political sense of a wealthy, powerful, often greedy individual is culturally loaded and not fully predictable from the words alone, making the expression only partially transparent to B1 learners.
Etymology
The expression fat cat comes from the picture of a well-fed cat with a big fat belly that lives in comfort while others work. People used that picture to name rich, powerful people who seem greedy, so today fat cat means 'a wealthy and powerful person'.