big enchilada

big enchilada or Big Enchilada

n. Slang

1. One who is in charge: "[the President's] big enchilada on both foreign and domestic policy" (Mary McGrory).

2. Something of the highest value or importance: "[The team] won the big enchilada in 1980 and 1982" (Scott Ostler).

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[On the model of such expressions as big cheese.]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

big enchilada - an important influential person; "he thinks he's a big shot"; "she's a big deal in local politics"; "the Qaeda commander is a very big fish" big cheese, big deal, big fish, big gun, big shot, big wheel, head honcho colloquialism - a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech important person, influential person, personage - a person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the course of events knocker - (Yiddish) a big shot who knows it and acts that way; a boastful immoderate person supremo - the most important person in an organization