Green’s Dictionary of Slang

superior, important, powerful or posing as such (esp. in the criminal milieu).

1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 21: I always told every act we ever played with that you was the big shot agent of ’em all.
1932		G. Storm ‘Bobby Thatcher’ [comic strip] We’ve hired you a big-shot mouth-piece.
1936		R.L. Bellem ‘Falling Star’ in Spicy Detective Sept. 🌐 He was Carson Block, a big-shot banker from the east who’d been in Hollywood several months.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 86: The dope game in [New York] was under the control of ‘big-shot’ grafters.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 73: Sherman’s store is patronized by all the expensive Havana-lovers among the big-shot gangsters.
1956		T. Thursday ‘The Big Squawk’ in Smashing Detective Mag. 15 Apr. 🌐 Dan Hammerton, big shot gambler and bolita king.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 30: Big-shot marine! Ho, boy!
1973		E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 118: He was no longer a big-shot gangster.
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 61: You wait until I catch that Florrie Snow, the big-shot bitch.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 63: Then the NVA gooks would think we were bigshot civilian news reporters from New York City and wouldn’t shoot us in the back of the head.
1999		Guardian Rev. 11 Sept. 4: I don’t have a big-shot manager.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] Since Emory was a big shot lawyer I felt certain he could sue me.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 104: What if the dead tourist had bigshot kin.
2012		J. Dicker Harry Quebert Affair (2015) 238: What’s the matter with you, Mr Bigshot New Yorker?
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘A big-shot gangster, well connected’.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 76: A big-shot Crip from the West Coast.