flunkey

• flunkie, flunky

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /ˈflʌŋki/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ʌŋki

flunkey (plural flunkeys or flunkies)

1. (derogatory) An underling; a liveried servant or a footman; servant, retainer – a person working in the service of another (especially in the household).
   • 1929, Baldwyn Dyke Acland, chapter 2, in Filibuster:

     “One marble hall, with staircase complete, one butler and three flunkeys to receive a retired sojer who dares to ring the bell. D'you know, old boy, I gave my bowler to the butler, whangee to one flunkey, gloves to another, and there was the fourth poor blighter looking like an orphan at a Mothers' Meeting. …"

   • 1956 September, F. F. Nicholls, “Neyland, A Forgotten Harbour”, in Railway Magazine, pages 629-630:

     For fifty years, then, five times a week, the packet steamers came and went along that superb stretch of blue water, the trains rattled down the wooded valley of the pill, and their passengers rested and refreshed themselves in thriving New Milford, where flunkeys bowed before the best hotel. Those are the days which Neyland people, especially the older ones, recall with pride.

   • 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 304:

     Dignified flunkies in the circular reception hall of the Ritz took my bag and briefcase and I came through the revolving door looking for Renata.

2. An unpleasant, snobby or cringeworthy person.

• flunker (possibly false cognate)
• lackey

• “flunkey”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “flunky”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.