flunkey

plural flunkeys · plural flunkies · alternative flunkie · alternative flunky

1. derogatoryAn underling; a liveried servant or a footman; servant, retainer – a person working in the service of another (especially in the household).

   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.

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

   3 more examples

   “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. …"

   1929, Baldwyn Dyke Acland, chapter 2, in Filibuster

   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.

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

   Coddled by gloved flunkies in dehumidified rooms, these volumes have been cherished with the same hushed attention that Saint Laurent and Bergé once lavished on Parisian ladies of a certain age.

   2015 November 26, Stephen Smith, “The £30m bookshelf: Pierre Bergé and the greatest stories ever sold”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. An unpleasant, snobby or cringeworthy person.