delta male

plural delta males

1. A male without an authoritative position or role in social or group hierarchy; a male commoner.

   The Delta male is in fact quite an attraction to certain women. Shyness in a man can be mistaken for the mystique in the Bravo male and can initiate an attraction, which can lead to more.

   2014, R W Docherty, Reaching the Endgame, page 17

   3 more examples

   The delta male is a highly caring and sensitive man. They are the ones who like to ask you first before going on a head with something, they like your input in everything that goes on in the relationship.

   2010, John G., Small Talk: It’s Only My Opinion, page 89

   Scott, who runs the Classic and promotes me here, said I was wrong about the heckler being the alpha male of the sport fan group. He said the alpha male would have money, cars, women and be silent. The heckler was a kind of delta male, the jester to the king alpha male. He would spend his life in the orbit of power, trailing it, circling it, but never achieving it.

   2010, Stewart Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, page 323

   You're right that Camacho was just a delta male as you call them, but jerks like that are a dime a dozen. They work for somebody for peanuts, do anything, anything they're told, just like BB said.

   2020, Abigail Padgett, Blue

2. A male animal that ranks fourth in the social hierarchy.

   One instance of ejaculation followed an intense grooming sequence between the alpha and delta male in troop II.

   2013, Leonard A. Rosenblum, Primate Behavior: Developments in Field and Laboratory Research, page 354

   2 more examples

   In one multi-male group, the alpha male assumed the aggressive role 45 % of the time, nine times more frequently than the delta male.

   1969, Clarence Ray Carpenter, H. O. Hofer, Proceedings: Behavior, page 33

   There was some scrapping between Henry, the stolid Busner beta male, and David, the rather more excitable delta male, but it didn't amount to a fight and fusion quickly emerged

   2012, Will Self, Great Apes, page 433

3. An average man.