mover and shaker

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English

We are the music-makers,
and we are the dreamers of dreams,
wandering by lone sea-breakers
and sitting by desolate streams;
world-losers and world-forsakers
on whom the pale moon gleams;
yet we are the movers and shakers
of the world for ever, it seems.

~ From "Ode" by Arthur O'Shaughnessy (published in 1873)

Noun

mover and shaker (plural movers and shakers)

  1. (figurative, usually in the plural) Someone who has power and influence in a field or activity; one who accomplishes tasks, who gets things done.
    The sales team sought to talk to the movers and shakers within an organization, rather than to their underlings.
    He really is a mover and a shaker in those circles.
    • 2005, Dave Yoho, Have a Great Year Every Year: A Four Point Program for Maximizing Your Performance, OakHill Press, page 175:
      Being loyal to the people you work for is also an important initial step on your road to becoming a mover and shaker.
    • 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and Facts behind railway plaques: Reading (1840)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 56:
      People such as William James and the Stephensons (with whom he collaborated) may have been the movers and shakers of the early railways, but there was other, less exalted bods who constructed all the paraphernalia - including stations.

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