Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Informal One who is known for achieving excellent results in a profession or field, such as business or politics.
  • noun One who is believed to be capable of producing rain, as through magical or ritual actions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A native american medicine man who induces rain by rituals.
  • noun A person who induces rainfall through scientific methods (i.e. silver iodide cloud seeding).
  • noun figurative An employee of a company who creates a large amount of unexpected business, consistently brings in money at critical times, or brings in markedly more money than his or her co-workers, thereby "floating their salaries".
  • noun figurative An investor in sick or start-up business ventures.
  • noun slang (figurative) An executive or lawyer with exceptional ability to attract clients, use political connections, or increase profits, etc.
  • noun baseball, informal A batted ball that is hit very high into the air.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun American Indian medicine man who attempt to make it rain
  • noun executive who is very successful in bringing in business to his company or firm

Etymologies

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Examples

Comments

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  • In baseball, a high pop-fly. Apparently.

    July 11, 2008

  • I wasn't aware of the meaning WeirdNet refers to.

    August 16, 2009

  • That was the only meaning I was familiar with. It's used in corporate finance to describe the big swinging dicks.

    August 17, 2009

  • Yeah. Wasn't there a movie called "The Rainmaker"? John Grisham novel, something like that? I just remember Al Pacino standing behind some young buck on the poster, looking like the devil himself.

    Which I think was the point.

    August 17, 2009

  • Yep, originally a John Grisham novel, subsequently a movie.

    August 17, 2009