myrmidon

plural myrmidons

1. A soldier or a subordinate civil officer who executes orders of a superior without protest or pity (sometimes applied to bailiffs, constables, etc).

   He cared no more for the Devil and all his myrmidons, for he kenned brawly he was damned.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

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   Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room, / And, turning up her nose, with looks abused / Her master, and his myrmidons, of whom / Not one, except the attorney, was amused; […]

   1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, stanza CLIX, page 82

   Tobias (to Jonas Fogg, manager of a madhouse): "I will die ere I submit to you or your vile myrmidons."

   1847, George Dibdin Pitt, The String of Pearls; or, The Fiend of Fleet Street (play), act III, scene II

   When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice, especially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate; […]

   1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XII, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 197

   My heart wells up in admiration of the man, as I think of his participation in the memorable struggle of Homestead. He fought the Pinkertons, the myrmidons of Capital.

   1912, Alexander Berkman, chapter 6, in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist

   […]headed for a revelation to the District Attorney that would probably result in my having the pleasure of meeting H. R. Corbett or some other flatfooted myrmidon[…]

   1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam edition, published 1992, →ISBN, pages 177–178

   Synonyms: acolyte, adjutant, aide, bootlicker, disciple, flunkey, footman, satrap

plural Myrmidons

1. Greekhuman sciencesOne of a fierce tribe or troop who accompanied Achilles, their king, in the Trojan War.

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   The Myrmidons were the soldiers of Achilles, in the Trojan war. From them all zealous and unscrupulous followers of a political chief are called by that name, down to this day. But the origin of the Myrmidons would not give one the idea of a fierce and bloody race, but rather of a laborious and peaceful one.

   1855, Thomas Bulfinch, chapter XII, in The Age of Fable

1. Greekhuman sciencesThe ancestral hero of the Myrmidon tribe, son of Zeus and Eurymedusa.