brass ceiling
n.— «Dunwoody’s daughter, Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, 55, has just been tapped by President Bush to take over a new Army command as the first female four-star general in the history of the armed services.…Dunwoody was proud to see his daughter burst through “the brass ceiling,” as service personnel refer to it.» —“Dad proud of daughter in line to be 4-star general” in Englewood, Florida ABC News July 15, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If something pales in comparison to something else, the reference is to its intensity decreasing next to something even brighter. The pale in this case is unrelated to the one in beyond the pale, which has to do with territory marked by a literal...
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant look into the myriad stories behind the word cocktail. Does the drink name come from feathers? Horses? Something up a horse’s rump? It’s a weird wandering down etymology...