understrappers

Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called understrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman.

Middlemarch 1871

Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called understrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman.

Middlemarch: a study of provincial life (1900) 1871

Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called understrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman.

Middlemarch George Eliot 1849

There was good reason for the aides-de-camp an "understrappers," as Elmendorf referred to them, being even more mysterious than usual.

A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike Charles King 1888

The prime minister himself drank water throughout, but some of his understrappers were cunningly pouring champagne from the flutes into regular white wine glasses.

What David Cameron said to Steve Bell Simon Hoggart 2010

Have the goodness, then, to let one of your understrappers correct the spelling and the grammar of my papers; and you can give him a few shillings in my name for his trouble.

The Fitz-Boodle Papers 2006

The electors were balloting; but with the ballot, — so said the leader of the understrappers, — there never was any excitement.

The Way We Live Now 2004

At the committee-room he only found a few understrappers, and was informed that everything was going on regularly.

The Way We Live Now 2004

Another projected a variety of plans for new dictionaries, which were executed under his eye by day-labourers; and the province of a third was history and voyages, collected or abridged by understrappers of the same class.

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle 2004

But when these fellows were recognised, by some one in the court, as Protestant witnesses out of employment, companions and understrappers to Oates, and Bedloe, and Carstairs, and hand in glove with Dangerfield, Turberville; and

Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004