smallwig

English

Etymology

back-formation from bigwig.

Noun

smallwig (plural smallwigs)

1. A minor functionary or stakeholder.
   • 1923, Time - Volume 32, page 19:

     A tent is good enough to shelter the President at night, but if the hacienda of a rich Mexican is sighted toward dusck the Cardenasparty of from ten to 50 horsemen may drop in on the local bigwig whom it is the business of the Six-Year Plan to turn into a smallwig owning not over 381 acres — the theoretical top to which all crop-producing private land holdings in Mexico are ultimately to be reduced.

   • 1994, Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Advertising, →ISBN:

     The bigwigs of the agency will make the presentation that will win your heart — and your business. But the smallwigs will do all the work.

   • 2013, Andrew Collins, Billy Bragg: Still Suitable for Miners, →ISBN, page 139:

     The second week in August happened to be the week of the annual New Music Seminar, an industry talking shop where every bigwig and smallwig from every record company in America would descend — a great place for getting noticed, and yet a bloody difficult one.

   • 2017, Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, →ISBN:

     Petty influence-peddlers and smallwigs who wanted to be seen on TV seated themselves in the front rows so they could convert their visible proximity to power into business deals.