Today,the expression bigwig is used to make fun of a person who feels important.
VOA: special.2009.11.29
At the right Brussels dinners, speakers of a certain grandeur (an ex-commissioner, say, or abigwig from the European Parliament) win table-thumping applause by denouncing perfidious Albion, before noting solemnly that the Lisbon treaty, for the first time, allows countries to get out.