big brother

English

big brother (plural big brothers)

(often childish) A sibling's older brother.
If you don't give me back my toys I'll tell my big brother!
(figurative) Something that is bigger in comparison.
- 2019 October, Roger Ford, “WCP award - victory for DfT reactionaries”, in Modern Railways, page 32:
  While the little MTU Vee-12s in the Class 800 bi-mode generating units have lower overall emissions than their big brothers in the Class 43 IC125 power cars, in the case of CO₂, when you burn a litre of diesel fuel you get 2.8kg of CO₂. [a possible error in the original text]
(figurative) early mobile phones (in China)
- 2018 December, “Chinese Terminology: Big Brother”, in CGTN‎^[1]:
  Due to the size of Big Brother and the fact that people who used it were mostly big brothers in the business world, this thing quickly became a status symbol.
  See also: Big Brother
Alternative form of Big Brother

a sibling's older brother — see older brother