"high on the totem pole" meaning in English

See high on the totem pole in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: Derived from totem poles, traditional sculptures of wood made by American Indians, usually with several figures carved one above the other. The vertical order was mistakenly perceived by the non-Indians to correspond with the figures' rank of importance. Head templates: {{head|en|adjective|head=high on the totem pole}} high on the totem pole
  1. (often offensive, idiomatic) Accorded relatively high importance. Tags: idiomatic, offensive, often
    Sense id: en-high_on_the_totem_pole-en-adj-8MkADL76 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for high on the totem pole meaning in English (1.0kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "low on the totem pole"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Derived from totem poles, traditional sculptures of wood made by American Indians, usually with several figures carved one above the other. The vertical order was mistakenly perceived by the non-Indians to correspond with the figures' rank of importance.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective",
        "head": "high on the totem pole"
      },
      "expansion": "high on the totem pole",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Accorded relatively high importance."
      ],
      "id": "en-high_on_the_totem_pole-en-adj-8MkADL76",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(often offensive, idiomatic) Accorded relatively high importance."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "offensive",
        "often"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "high on the totem pole"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "low on the totem pole"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Derived from totem poles, traditional sculptures of wood made by American Indians, usually with several figures carved one above the other. The vertical order was mistakenly perceived by the non-Indians to correspond with the figures' rank of importance.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective",
        "head": "high on the totem pole"
      },
      "expansion": "high on the totem pole",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English offensive terms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Accorded relatively high importance."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(often offensive, idiomatic) Accorded relatively high importance."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "offensive",
        "often"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "high on the totem pole"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.