big fish in a small pond

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɪɡ ˈfɪʃ ɪn ə smɔːl ˈpɒnd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɪɡ ˈfɪʃ ɪn ə smɔl ˈpɑnd/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

big fish in a small pond (plural big fish in small ponds or big fish in a small pond)

1. (idiomatic) One who has achieved a high rank or is highly esteemed, but only in a small, relatively unimportant, or little known location or organization.

   Synonyms: big fish in a little pond, (vulgar slang) King Shit of Fuck Mountain

   Antonym: small fish in a big pond

   Dr. Jones could get a professorship at an Ivy League university, but he enjoys being a big fish in a small pond too much to ever leave Hannover College.

   • 1969, Athelstan Spilhaus, “Technology, Living Cities, and Human Environment”, in Science & Technology and the Cities: Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives: A Compilation of Papers Prepared for the Tenth Meeting of the Panel on Science and Technology, →OCLC, page 37:

     Toynbee worries about the psychosomatic effects when an individual has a constant stature yet finds himself living in complexes of ever-increasing magnitude. In a community small enough to identify with, yet large enough to offer sufficient choices, man need not be either a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond.

   • 1985, John Burnheim, “Is Demarchy Possible?”, in Is Democracy Possible?: The Alternative to Electoral Politics, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, pages 179–180:

     No doubt many would feel that being a big fish in a small pond for a small time is not enough. Fortunately the system could and would continue to work well without such people.

   • 1995 February, Maria Shevtsova, “Of ‘Butterfly’ and Men: Robert Wilson Directs Diana Soviero at the Paris Opéra”, in Clive Barker, Simon Trussler, editors, New Theatre Quarterly, volume XI, number 41, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 3, column 2:

     Then there is the profile, desired or acquired, by opera houses, how much they are prepared to spend being a measure of how keen they are on international prestige. The big names they draw are not big fish in small ponds. They are big on the international circuit, which fosters the kind of cultural mixing (in aesthetic, organizational, managerial, and financial terms) that operates in a very pronounced way in opera today, as well as in the performance arts aspiring to its status and scale.

   • 1998, Lewis Ellingham, Kevin Killian, “The Poet in New York (and Boston)”, in Poet be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, →ISBN, page 63:

     He [Jack Spicer] had come to New York to escape the claustrophobia of being a big fish in a small pond, and to make his way as a writer.

   • 2000, Elijah Wald, “Josh at Midnight: 1954–1958”, in Josh White: Society Blues, Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, →ISBN, page 239:

     Indeed, Josh [White]'s status throughout the 1950s would often be that of a big fish in a small pond. The major labels, films, and network television shows were barred to him, but the newer, smaller folk promoters considered him an established star, and some, at least, assumed that his price would be out of their reach.

   • 2000 April 20, Lee Child [pseudonym; James Dover Grant], The Visitor, London: Bantam Press, →ISBN; republished as Running Blind (A Jack Reacher Novel), Jove premium edition, New York, N.Y.: Jove Books, July 2009, →ISBN, page 275:

     ["]I'd have gotten promotion, so I would have been higher up in a smaller organization." / "What's wrong with that? Big fish in a small pond, right?"

   • 2012, Michael Zweig, “The Class Structure of the United States”, in The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret, 2nd edition, Ithaca, N.Y., London: ILR Press, Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 14:

     Most of the businesses are big fish in small ponds, holding sway in a local area but wielding little market or political power on a national or even regional scale.

• hidden champion

• big-fish–little-pond effect on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “big fish in a small pond, n.” under “big, adj. and adv.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2008.
• “a big fish, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.