(The Great), subs. phr. (common).—A village potentate; a Brummagem magnate. [From Foote’s nonsense lines, written to test Macklin’s memory: see quot.]
d. 1777. FOOTE [The Quarterly Review, XCV. 516–7]. So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. “What! no soap?” So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the GRAND PANJANDRUM himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heel of their boots.
1883. H. JAMES, in Harper’s Magazine, LXXVII. 86. ‘Well, no, not exactly a nobleman.’ ‘Well, some kind of a PANJANDRUM. Hasn’t he got one of their titles?’
