lord it over

From lord over.

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lord it over (third-person singular simple present lords it over, present participle lording it over, simple past and past participle lorded it over)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To behave as if one is in control of; to make a display of having an advantage over or superiority to.
   • 1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseudonym; Washington Irving], chapter 16, in A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Inskeep & Bradford, , →OCLC:

     They were in a manner absolute despots in their little domains, lording it, if so disposed, over both law and gospel, and accountable to none but the mother-country.

   • 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 53, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. , volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, , →OCLC:

     Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their situations, were gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became paupers in that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others.

   • 1904, James M. Barrie, chapter 4, in Peter Pan:

     Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much, but if he wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand.

   • 2011 April 28, Tristram Hunt, “How the Monarchy Allows Britannia to Make Waves”, in Time:

     The Delhi Durbar of 1911 saw King George V and Queen Mary bedecked in sapphires and rubies lording it over half a million Indian subjects.

• put on airs

• “lord it over”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.