Also 8–9 flunky, Sc. flunkie, 9 flanky. [orig. Scotch: see quots. Possibly a diminutive corruption of FLANKER.]
1. A male servant in livery, esp. a footman, lackey; usually with implied contempt.
1782. Sir J. Sinclair, Observ. Scot. Dial., in Life (1837), I. 48. Flunkie—A footman; literally a sidesman or attendant at your flank.
1787. Burns, Twa Dogs, 53.
| He rises when he likes himsel’; | |
| His flunkies answer at the bell. |
1826. Hood, Recipe for Civilization, 13.
| But play at dummy like the monkeys, | |
| For fear mankind should make them flunkies. |
1848. Thackeray, Lett., 1 Aug. These miserable miscreants did not see by my appearance that I was not a flunkey, but on the contrary, a great and popular author.
1876. J. Saunders, Lion in Path, xx. Delighted with his visitor, the flunkey went off to seek Jemima Seager, the maid, poured the whole story into her ear, and found her strangely puzzled and thoughtful afterwards.
b. Naut. slang. A ship’s steward.
1883. in W. C. Russell, Sailors’ Lang.
2. Applied contemptuously to a person who behaves obsequiously to persons above him in rank or position; a ‘lackey,’ toady, snob.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, II. v. 49. I don’t frequent operas and parties in London like you young flunkeys of the aristocracy.
1856. Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 217. No sooner, however, did he leave the miserable rabble of snobs and flunkies to take care of themselves, than their absolute helplessness was made manifest.
1884. H. Labouchere, Radicals and Whigs, in Fortn. Rev., XXXV. Feb., 209. This had excited the rage and indignation of every flunkey in the kingdom.
3. attrib. and Comb., as flunkey customer, species, work; flunkey-flanked a.
1826. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 268. Rolling along in flunky-flanked eckipages by the Boulevards o’ Paris, gloried in the blaze o’ their iniquity.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., I. v. 41. Speak now, is it the bare Bobus stript of his very name and shirt, and turned loose upon society, that you admire and thank Heaven for; or Bobus with his cash-accounts and larders dropping fatness, with his respectabilities, warm garnitures, and pony-chaise, admirable in some measure to certain of the flunky species?
1858. Dickens, Lett., 6 Sept. Such a schoolmaster must swallow all the silver forks that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and are not expected to take away with them when they go. And of course he could not exist, unless he had flunkey customers by the dozen.
1886. Fenn, The Master of the Ceremonies, I. iv. It was beggarly work—flunkey work, and it disgusted me.
Hence many nonce-wds.: Flunkey v. intr., to act like a flunkey. Flunkeyage [after peerage etc.], the class of flunkeys, a list of flunkeys. Flunkeyal a., of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a flunkey. Flunkeyfied ppl. a., imbued with flunkeyism. Flunkeyhood, the fact or state of being a flunkey. Flunkeyish a., Flunkeyistic a., Flunkeyite a., characteristic of or resembling a flunkey. Flunkeyize v. trans., to imbue with the spirit of a flunkey.
1864. E. A. Murray, E. Norman, I. 233. By flunkeying after that set of rabble.
1848. (title) The Flunkey and the British Flunkeyage, a Companion to Burke’s Peerage, by Birkenhare.
1864. Times, 27 June, 11/1. If he is anxious to proclaim his flunkial subserviency, let him do so.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xlii. ‘Wawt taim will you please have the cage, sir?’ says What-d’ye-call’um, in that peculiar, unspellable, inimitable, flunkefied pronunciation which forms one of the chief charms of existence.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr. II. vii. 102. The grand summary of a man’s spiritual condition, what brings out all his herohood and insight, or all his flunkyhood and horn-eyed dimness, is this question put to him, What man dost thou honour?
1823. Maginn, in Blackw. Mag., XIV. Nov., 524. There is something flunkyish and valleydeshammical in the whole passage.
1879. T. P. O’Connor, Beaconsfield, 196. We can imagine the cynic smile with which the author of ‘Vivian Grey’ would peruse such a plain intimation that there was somebody who was badly in want of something, and who, to gain that end, was willing to do a very considerable amount of flunkeyish worship of the powerful.
1858. Illustr. Times, 18 Dec., 407. A Titanic flunkey with the orthodox flunkeyistic calves. Ibid. (1858), 24 July. We do detest … the flunkeyite view of aristocracy.
1878. Goldw. Smith, in Echo, 19 Dec., 2. The attempt to flunkeyise the New World.
