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Underling   Listen
noun
Underling  n.  
1.
An inferior person or agent; a subordinate; a low-ranking employee.
2.
Hence, A mean, sorry fellow. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Underling" Quotes from Famous Books



... carpenters, {14} bakers, Cossacks, sailors,—in all, five hundred and eighty men.[10] Now, if it was difficult to transport a handful of attendants across Siberia for the first simple voyage, what was it to convoy this rabble composed of self-important scientists bent on proving impossible theories, of underling officers each of whom considered himself a czar, of wives and children unused to such travel, of priests whose piety took the extraordinary form of knouting subordinates to death, of Cossacks who drank and gambled and brawled ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... vain and amorous; not, like the other's, eloquent and raging. When they wanted her to preach, she could only utter sorry things. Michaelis was fain to play out the piece by himself. As chief inquisitor, and bound greatly to outdo his Flemish underling, he avowed that he had already drawn out of this small body a host of six thousand, six hundred, and sixty devils: only a hundred still remained. By way of convincing the public, he made her throw up the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... Stuart's opinion of the plot of which Cecil was the head. Here, in Vellano, was an underling—or another conspirator, as it might be—favorable to England, resentful of the United States, and probably in a spirit of revolt against existing conditions in his own country. The boy decided to test this out by bringing up the subject a ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... When he had first talked of that raid, his promised loot had been supplies to fill their daily needs; there had been no mention of maps. By all signs Thorvald was engaged on some mission. And what would happen if he, Shann, suddenly stopped being the other's obedient underling and demanded a few ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... And what could he ever be? What was the use of his studies in farming practise, if he was always to be an underling whose sole duty was to carry out the crude ideas of his employers? And what chance was there for a farm-hand to become a farm owner, or even a farm renter, especially if he had a mother to support out of the twenty-five or thirty dollars of ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... the road, and if he thought he had secured a good contract already, he would never dream of applying for another. Then, Wilson's malice was gratified by the thought that Gourlay, who hated him, should have to serve, as helper and underling, in a scheme for his aggrandizement. That would take down his pride for him! And the commercial imagination, so strong in Wilson, was inflamed by the vision of himself as a wealthy houseowner which Gibson put before him. Cunning Johnny ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... joined the general cry of the underling writers against Mr. Pope; and wrote many letters in the Flying Post, with an intention to reduce his reputation, with as little success as his other antagonists had done. In his prose Essay on Criticism, and in the Arts ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... many other things in which Robert felt sure Rodaine had played a part, too many other mysterious happenings which must be met and coped with, before the man of the blue-white scar could know that finally the underling was beginning to show fight, that at last the crushed had begun to rise. Fairchild bent and unlaced his shoes, taking off also the heavy woolen socks which protected his feet from the biting cold. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... Portuguese, it is said, indeed, are better customers for our manufactures than the French, and should therefore be encouraged in preference to them. As they give us their custom, it is pretended we should give them ours. The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his goods always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... use of dishonorable means for success, but solely to live and to die for honor, was formed; an innovation which, although merely military in its origin, speedily became of political importance, for, by means of this knightly honor, the little vassal of a minor lord was no longer viewed as a mere underling, but as a confederate in the great universal chivalric fraternity. There were also many freemen who sometimes gained their livelihood by offering their services to different courts, or by robbing on the highways, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... Mr. Gwynn's strength lay in bowing. He was also remarkable for the unflagging attention which he paid to whatever was said to him. On such occasions his unblinking stare, wholly receptive like an underling taking orders, and never a glimmer of either contradiction or agreement or even intelligence to show therein, was almost disconcerting. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, however, declared that this receptive, inane stare was the hall-mark of exclusive English circles. Mr. Gwynn gave another proof ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... some reason or other, Mr. Gibson came home unexpectedly. He was crossing the hall, having come in by the garden-door—the garden communicated with the stable-yard, where he had left his horse—when the kitchen door opened, and the girl who was underling in the establishment, came quickly into the hall with a note in her hand, and made as if she was taking it upstairs; but on seeing her master she gave a little start, and turned back as if to hide herself in the kitchen. If she had not made this movement, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Maryland where Catholics were heavily penalized, Baltimore resumed the government under favor of the Crown. But it was a government with a difference. In Maryland, as everywhere, the people were beginning to hold the reins. Not again the old lord and the old underling! For years to come the lords would say that they governed, but strong life arose beneath, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... Eckles, Cleveland's undersized underling, got some handclaps and whoops from the Chicago Credit Men's Association when he addressed the members at the Grand Pacific Hotel on the night of April 12th. He talked about the business men's longing for war when the country is insulted, and these snipes and jack bailiffs of the big mercantile ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... that the Duke of York would hang him if aware of his rank, he might be detained as a hostage or put to heavy ransom, or he might never be brought to the Duke's presence at all, but be put to death by some truculent underling, incredulous of a Scotsman's tale, if indeed he were not too proud to tell it. Anyway, Sir Patrick felt bound ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been sent away. For herself, she expected but to be driven forth with wrathful, disdainful words for her presumption. For what else could she hope from this splendid creature, who, while of her own flesh and blood, had never seemed to regard her as being more than a poor superfluous underling? But strangely enough, there was no anger in Clorinda's eyes; she but laughed, as though what she had seen had ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... may be cured, but the enmity of an official underling can never be dispelled,' and the malice of the persistent Ming-shu certainly points to the wisdom of the verse. Is the person of Kai-moo known to you, and where is the prison-house you ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... false altar. They were convinced; or at least had to acknowledge such conviction. The prime minister held short little debates with his underlings—with dukes and marquises, with earls and viscounts; held short debates with them, but allowed to no underling—to no duke, and to no viscount—to have any longer an opinion of his own. The altar had been a false altar: it was enough for them that they were so told. With great wisdom the majority of them considered ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... when Velasquez appeared at the palace. They worked all the wires they knew to bring about his downfall, and then dwindled away into chronic Artistic Jealousy, which finally struck in; and they were buried. That the plots, challenges and constant knockings of these underling court painters ever affected Velasquez, we can not see. He swung right along at prodigious strides, living his own life—a life outside and beyond all the pretense and vanity of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... comrade." For, instead of suffering himself to be driven, the elephant opened his mouth, curved up his trunk into something the shape of the letter S, and displaying two finely produced, sharply pointed tusks, he was starting in full chase of the stumpy underling who had been driving him down to the river, but only to turn back and make a call on his ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... they will consent to get into harness, he considered that Under-Secretaries, Junior Lords, and the like, should skip about as they were bidden, and take the crumbs offered them without delay. If every underling wanted a few hours to think about it, how could any Government ever be got together? "I am sorry to put you to inconvenience," continued Phineas, seeing that the great man was but ill-satisfied, "but I am so placed that I cannot avail myself of your flattering ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... indeed, it was almost impossible to deflect his conversation into any other channel. Twenty years' intimacy with the eccentric nobleman had largely obliterated that sense of deference with which an English servant usually approaches his master. An English underling's idea of nobility is the man who never by any possibility works with his hands. The fact that Lord Chizelrigg had toiled at the carpenter's bench; had mixed cement in the drawing-room; had caused the anvil to ring out till midnight, aroused no admiration in Higgins's mind. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... P." became the rallying cry of the party. The officious box-keeper became at the same time the object of the popular dislike, and the contempt with which the genius and fine qualities of Mr. Kemble would not permit them to regard him, was fastened upon his underling. So much ill-feeling was directed towards the latter, that at this time a return to the old prices, unaccompanied by his dismissal, would not have made the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... weather-beaten sea-dogs, who are seldom employed in boats, unless something more than common is to be done. He was a man of forty, hard-featured, pock-marked, red-faced, and scowling. I afterwards ascertained he was the son of some underling about the Portsmouth dock-yard, who had worked his way up to a lieutenancy, and owed his advancement principally to his readiness in impressing seamen. His ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... might be wanted as a provision for their family. I cared not one rush then, but it makes a difference now. As for my former line, I am forgotten or worse. I have said blunt things that there was no call for me to say. No one chooses to have me for an underling, and there is no more chance of my getting an appointment than of being made Khan of Tartary. Authorship is all that is left ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... adventure with the hostler which gave occasion for his vivid portrait of an Italian uffiziale, and also to that irresistible impulse to cane the insolent hostler, from the ill consequences of which he was only saved by the underling's precipitate flight. The night was spent at Radicofani, five and twenty miles farther on. A clever postilion diversified the route to Viterbo, another forty-three miles. The party was now within sixteen leagues, or ten hours, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... said I to myself, he knew their castles to be impregnable, but, with the curiosity of youth, I desired to form an opinion of my own. I therefore lodged as a wayfarer at every castle to I could gain admittance, making friends with some underling, and getting a bed on occasion in the stables, although often I lodged within the castle itself. Thus I came to the belief, which I bring to you, that assisted by twenty fearless men I can capture any castle on the Rhine with the exception of three. And now, Herr Goebel, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... "is precisely why I'm so eager to come. When you've been an underling all your life you can't imagine what a joy it is ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... the aforesaid private room, where, behind a large table covered with wicker baskets containing dockets and memoranda, et hoc genus omne, sat the very gentleman whom I had recently taken for his own underling! ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... grandfather; most of them had served her father from the time he had inherited his estate. The Squire had been the most conservative and indulgent of masters; always liking to see the old faces. The butler was old, and even on his underling's bullet-head the gray hairs were beginning to show. Mrs. Trimmer was at least sixty, and had been getting annually bulkier for the last twenty years. The kitchen-maid was a comfortable-looking person of forty. There was an atmosphere of domestic peace in the offices of the Abbey House ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... is, if she would consent to link her life with one who had been once a failure. Margaret! How wonderful she was! If Margaret said he ought to go back and be a lawyer, he would go—yes, even if he had to enter his uncle's office as an underling to do it. His soul loathed the idea, but he would do it for Margaret, if she thought it best. And so he mused ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... signal-flags nor couriers proclaimed the event, all as had been done a week before when a babe was born to the Prince and Princess Esterhazy at the same place. Now the child born last was the son of obscure parents, the father being an underling secretary of the Prince, known as Liszt. The child was very weak and frail, and for some months it was thought hardly possible it could live; but Destiny decreed that the boy ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... crowning points of his ambition; he never sat in the House of Peers, he never pushed his way to the council board, he never held quite the highest rank in any naval expedition, he never ruled with only the Queen above him even in Ireland. He who of all men hated most and deserved least to be an underling, was forced to play the subordinate all through the most brilliant part of his variegated life of adventure. It was only for a moment, at Cadiz or Fayal, that by a doubtful breach of prerogative he struggled to the surface, to sink again directly the achievement was accomplished. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... took occasion to congratulate the despised underling with pompous insincerity, whereat Louis admonished him scowlingly to beat it back to his trial balance or he'd bounce a letter-press on ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... underling were on the ground before that stubborn citadel answered the reiterated summons; but at last there came the sound of bolts withdrawn. An iron bar dropped from its socket with a clang that echoed long and loud in the empty hall, the door ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... with them, or you would not be in town to-day; something has escaped you in the Morning Post, some function to which you were not invited, or of which you knew nothing. If you happen to be a Capulet you feel mildly amused, and in order to correct the wrong impression and let the underling know your name and address you purchase the drawing; for the greatest have their weak side. But, if not, and you have simply risen from the 'purple of commerce,' you are determined not to lag behind stuck- up ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... waiter at the Grand Cafe, no longer deigns to discuss the news of the day with me. Good Monsieur Giraudet, who could suggest the happiest little menus, when I went to his admirable restaurant, and who kept the Rappel for me, now bows silently and sends an underling to see ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... his reports to the home Board of Health concerning the yellow fever germ. The consul knew that not one in fifty of his acquaintances in the States had ever heard of Coralio. He knew that two men, at any rate, would have to read his report—some underling in the State Department and a compositor in the Public Printing Office. Perhaps the typesticker would note the increase of commerce in Coralio, and speak of it, over the cheese ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... almost of its own accord, so long as foreign affairs are quiet and unbroken," wrote Mirabeau after Frederick's death. "But at the first gunshot or at the first stormy situation the whole of this little scaffolding of mediocrity will topple to the ground. How all these underling Ministers would crumple up! How everyone, from the distracted chief to the convict-gang, would shout for a pilot! Who would ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... Trust that one not to imperil his precious carcase when he could find an underling to run the risk for him! I tell you I have seen Ekstrom within this last month, alive and serving the Fatherland as the genius of that system of espionage which keeps the enemy advised of your every move, down to the least considerable—that system which makes ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... some underling of the theatre found us out and brought us, "by Mrs. Siddons' desire," to the best ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... by the eternal, you shall pay for this. I'll make an example of you that the North country will not forget in years. Already, you deserve punishment for breaking out of Fort Severn; this is the last straw. We'll see whether the Company can be set at naught by every underling in its employ." ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... lingered, his eyes fixed upon Wingate's face. He, too, was an underling of Grant's,—a keen, intelligent-looking man, with broad shoulders and a ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... friends to entrap them into more cruel and ruthless hands. On every side loomed the evidence of their danger. The villainous stares of foreign interlopers, the ribald jests of guards, the furtive glances of the envious, the scowls of the emancipated underling, the profanity of the domineering agitator who denounced respectability and clamored for possession of the girls,—no moment of their lives was free from ugly threats; no retreat, save the wild jungle or the mountains, offered any liberation from the immodest glare of ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... undwarfed by any rival. The remainder landscape was only minor and judiciously accessory. The hills were low before it, the lake lowly, and upright above lake and hill lifted the mountain pyramid. Isolate greatness tells. There were no underling mounts about this mountain-in-chief. And now on its shoulders and crest sunset shone, glowing. Warm violet followed the glow, soothing away the harshness of granite lines. Luminous violet dwelt upon the peak, while below the clinging forests were purple ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... where the Author now seems chargeable with making them speak out of character: Or sometimes perhaps for no better reason than that a governing Player, to have the mouthing of some favourite speech himself, would snatch it from the unworthy lips of an Underling. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... the bars of the window cleanly filed through and removed. A rope ladder and a friend without, it is quite evident, did the rest. The man instantly gave the alarm and aid came. The head jailer appears to be as much at a loss as his underling, but he is suspected. He lived in his youth in the Powyss family, and was suspected of a strong attachment to the prisoner. He says he visited Miss Catheron last night as usual when on his rounds, and saw nothing wrong or suspicious then, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... all I wanted. He said he explained everything to the Big Boss down there and that after they had spent hours together and had gotten Dean Erskine on the long distance, he got the money. It was the mistake of some underling, turning me down, after Austin's death. The head of the Institution had supposed I had ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... by arranging for a tournament to be held at Stamford; while John, when within the walls of Windsor, gave vent to his rage, threw himself on the ground, rolled about gnawing sticks and straws, uttering maledictions upon the barons, and denouncing vengeance against the nation that had made him an underling ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... force that, if the money was not recovered, Jean Jacques would be a beggar. It was better to jail the father-in-law, than for the little money-master to take to the road a pauper, or stay on at St. Saviour's as an underling where he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a practical school-master would know that a schoolboy can be at once the plague and the pride of the school. Under these circumstances small and varying penalties are obviously the most convenient things for the person keeping order; an underling can be punished for coming late, and yet do useful work when he comes. It will be possible to give a rap over the knuckles without wholly cutting off the right hand that has offended. Under these circumstances the employers have naturally resorted to fines. ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... turned to grandma, and asked if she was going to let an underling insult a guest ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... and approached the boy. He thrust the paper bag into a little grasping hand, then he took hold of the small shoulders and looked down at him steadily. The blue eyes in the ordinary face of an ordinary man, unfitted for any work in life except that of an underling, were full of affection and reproof. Eddy looked into them, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... usual course of things, these men are not often to be found in the society of gentry; except, perhaps, among those gentlemen or noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their tables; or who find it for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their favourites, or to propose and CARRY jobs for them on grand juries. At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the county. Lady Dashfort hinted to Lord Killpatrick, that her private ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... am rather busy just now. Good morning." He rang the bell. "Oh, Mr. Jounce," he said to the underling who appeared, "will you please ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... was at her regal best, with the kind of noblesse oblige that would bring worshipful gratitude to the heart of any underling. "Oh, just a quick run-through on whatever you think would be interesting, Mr. Midguard; I don't want to take up too much of ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... oft found out by reason. For what man, I pray you, being better able to maintain himself by valiant courage than by living in base subjection, would not rather look to rule like a lord, than to live like an underling; If by reason he were not persuaded that it behoveth every man to live in his own vocation, and not to seek any higher room than that whereunto he was at the first, appointed? Who would dig and delve from morn till evening? Who would travail and toil with the sweat of his brows? ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... across the countenance of Jennings, but he turned away from his underling so that he might not betray the satisfaction he felt. "Mrs. Herne is Maraquito's aunt," ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... Landhofmeisterin's fears had grown dim, habit had resumed sway. She worked at the affairs of State each morning, and save that the business was transacted at La Favorite instead of at the palace, and that Baron Schuetz was replaced by an underling clerk, everything seemed to have lost that touch of the unusual which is part of the menace of coming disaster. True, the courtiers were scarcely assiduous in the visiting of the Landhofmeisterin, but they dared not ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... with the intrusion of their bias and cupidity, take their advice daily, follow it often, even in small matters, even in payments day by day of sums already voted, in appointing an office-clerk, in the appointment of an unpaid underling, who may some day or other take this clerk's place.[4247]—Hence the spectacle before our eyes: a badly kept establishment in which profusion and waste render each other worse and worse, where sinecures multiply and where corruption enters in; a staff of officials becoming more ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... that an underling should impose conditions, the Russian determined to resort to censure, but when he looked into the culprit's eyes he was puzzled ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... from sickness. He presented a goat and a large quantity of guavas. He gave the news that came from Dugumbe's underling Nserere, and men now at Ujiji; they went S.W. to country called Nombe, it is near Rua, and where copper is smelted. After I left them on account of the massacre at Nyangwe, they bought much ivory, but acting in the usual Arab way, plundering and killing, they aroused the Bakuss' ire, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... task by getting plenty of sleep. Napoleon's devouring eyes read far into the night; when he was in the field his secretaries forwarded a stream of books to his headquarters; and if he was left without a new volume to begin, some underling had to bear his imperial displeasure. No wonder that his brain contained so many ideas that, as the sharp- tongued poet, Heine, said, one of his lesser thoughts would keep all the scholars and professors in Germany ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... finished his drink in a gulp and stared at the newcomer. The old stare, the aloof stare, an aristocrat looking at an underling as though wondering what made the fellow tick. He said, finally, "I see you have been raised to ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... you are, to the dominion of so many things and persons, whom the praetor's rod, though placed on your head three or four times over, can never free from this wretched solicitude? Add, to what has been said above, a thing of no less weight; whether he be an underling, who obeys the master-slave (as it is your custom to affirm), or only a fellow-slave, what am I in respect of you? You, for example, who have the command of me, are in subjection to other things, and are led about, like a puppet movable by means ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... the behest, vanished in a flash, as if thankful to be out of the room, and when she reappeared, conducting the agitated underling, Mary had regained her self-possession, and had her ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... "I no longer fear to meet that upstart, Amilias. If his war coat can withstand the stroke of such a sword as Balmung, then I shall not be ashamed to be his underling. But, if this good blade is what it seems to be, it will not fail me; and I, Mimer the Old, shall still be called the wisest ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... visit had Paul paid to that shop, and not always to buy books. Norman knew him very well, and, recognizing him in a fleeting look as he passed through the doorway, smiled weakly. Behind the counter stood Bart Tawsey, the lean underling, who was much sharper with buyers than was his master, but after a disappointed glance in his direction Paul addressed himself to the bookseller. "I wish to see you particularly," he said, with his ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... edge along the wall toward the other doorway. Once he froze as the officer strode by, Lablet in attendance. But what the painted warrior was looking for was a crystal box on a shelf to Raf's left. When he had pointed that out to an underling he was off again, and Raf was free to ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... protection, the equivalent of many bodyguards, is slain in the prime of his strength. Have I not earned my reward? Am I to have no credit for all that is done? What if I had killed one of his guards, some underling, some favourite domestic? Would it not have been thought a great thing, to go up and dispatch the tyrant's friend within his own walls, in the midst of his armed attendants? But who was my victim? The tyrant's son, himself a more grievous tyrant ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... amusement. "It is as though a rookery sat in judgment upon a falcon. I warrant that you have found it easier to judge than to punish. Let me tell you, father Abbot, that this standeth not aright. When powers such as these were given to the like of you, they were given that you might check a brawling underling or correct a drunken woodman, and not that you might drag the best blood in England to your bar and set your archers on him if he questioned ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... not illegal. The man had gone wild. True, he, Cowperwood, had received an order after these securities were bought not to buy or sell any more city loan, but that did not invalidate previous purchases. Stener was browbeating and frightening his poor underling, a better man than himself, in order to get back this sixty-thousand-dollar check. What a petty creature he was! How true it was, as somebody had remarked, that you could not possibly measure the petty meannesses to ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... Yet, let but his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and the slave-owner will go far beyond the overseer in cruelty. He will convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless, and vastly more to be dreaded, than that of the underling overseer. What may have been mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer, is now done with a will. The man who now wields the lash is irresponsible. He may, if he pleases, cripple or kill, without fear of consequences; except in so far as it may concern ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... designing, mercenary, hard-hearted and as beautiful as a goddess." But he did not, and, as he paused he saw the head waiter spring forward from the doorway, smiling and holding up a pencil to attract the attention of some underling, and then he saw that Christine, Hickson and Mr. and Mrs. Linburne were being ushered in. Christine approached, tall, beautiful, conspicuous, and as divinely unconscious of it as Adam and Eve of their nakedness; she moved between the tables, bowing ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... all this, we were doomed to disappointment, sad, sad disappointment. Instead of realising what we had hoped for, we find ourselves occupying the very same position in relation to our Anti-Slavery friends, as we do in relation to the pro-slavery part of the community—a mere secondary, underling position, in all our relations to them, and any thing more than this, is not a matter of course affair—it comes not by established anti-slavery custom or right, but like that which emanates from the pro-slavery portion of ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... above the first fireball. In a second now, at the command of an underling, the ray directors would destroy fire-ball and Martians as thoroughly as though they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... instructions. How instructions were conveyed to an advocate in those days we do not quite know. There was no system of attorneys. But the story was probably made out for the "patronus" or advocate by an underling, and in some way prepared for him. That which was thus prepared he exaggerated as the case might seem to require. It has to be understood of Cicero that he possessed great art and, no doubt, great audacity in such exaggeration; in regard to which ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... was crowded with beautiful women; under the light of the red shades they looked kind and approachable, and there was food on every table, and iced drinks in silver buckets. It was with the joy of great relief that he heard Ellis say to his underling, "Numero cinq, sur la terrace, un couvert." It was real at last. Outside, the Thames lay a great gray shadow. The lights of the Embankment flashed and twinkled across it, the tower of the House ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... arrangement was to prevent the possibility of error on the part of the Judges, who, otherwise, would never know whether a horse belonged to a General or a Subaltern, to a Member of Council or an Assistant Collector, to a Head of a Department or a wretched underling—in short to a personage ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... mother-side of life, once so powerful as representative of tribal unity, was set aside and overborne by the father-side, as Apollo proudly claims all generative power for man and relegates the mother to the position of an underling nurse. It will be remembered, however, that Athena, although, as Apollo said, "having a father only," makes the mothers still invaluable as guardians of the family altar and as those who can bless or blight both the fruitage of the earth ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... jailer and fellow-prisoners are beautiful and instructive. The former is called 'the keeper of the prison,' and is evidently Potiphar's deputy, in more immediate charge of the prison. Of course, the great man had an underling to do the work, and probably that underling was not chosen for sweetness of temper or facile leniency to his charges. But he fell under the charm of Joseph's character—all the more readily, perhaps, because his occupation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... that, subordinate to the primal Being, there exists another who enters into much closer relations with mankind. He is often concerned with healing and with prophecy, or with the inspiration of conjurers or shamans. Sometimes he is merely an underling, as in the case of the Massachusetts Kiehtan, and his more familiar subordinate, Hobamoc. {30} But frequently this go-between of God and Man is (like Apollo) the Son of the primal Being (often an unbegotten ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... tall and magnificent form, or entirely destroyed, though they had completely subdued, the quiet beauty of her face, which must once have been strikingly like that of her niece. She had been in youth the underling of her family, as her elder brother had been the tyrant; and it was perhaps a fitting sequel, that at this period of her life she should have become, to some small extent, a pensioner on his bounty, as well as a peacemaker ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... they believed it possible, they had sense enough to remember that a sacked city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own sagacity. At least London did not flog them. Their wives and sisters were not here dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command of any underling they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound and fury might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity. "We could do all this," they seemed to say; "if we forbear, let London be grateful." As for Boriskoff, he had talked so many times ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... son of a teacher of drawing, Maurice Hilliard had spent most of his life in the Midland capital; to its grammar school he owed an education just sufficiently prolonged to unfit him for the tasks of an underling, yet not thorough enough to qualify him for professional life. In boyhood he aspired to the career of an artist, but his father, himself the wreck of a would-be painter, rudely discouraged this ambition; ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... however, that he remained an underling. Before he was eighteen years of age he had got his own flocks, and in the course of a few years was the richest sheep-master in the whole island of Bergen. At last he was able to buy a knight's estate for himself, and that ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... We are such lovers of self-reliance that we excuse in a man many sins if he will show us a complete satisfaction in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man's good opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, forfeits all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing to do with him; I will speak with his master. A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,—not bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He should ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... admitted to come that way, because of the evil consequences that will unavoidably flow therefrom. 1. By this means, grace, and justification by grace, would be rejected; and that would be a foul business; it would not be reckoned of grace. 2. By this, God would become the debtor, and so the underling; and so we in this the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... assessment, etc.; besides extortion, confiscation, and forced sales. And woe to the new citizen of the great French republic if he failed in paying more servile homage to its officers, from the prefect down to the lowest underling, than had ever been exacted by the princes![12] Such was the liberty bestowed by republican France! Thus were her promises fulfilled! The German Illuminati were fearfully undeceived, particularly on perceiving how completely ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... the Prophet hastily assisted the victim of prolonged travel to some buttered toast. Having also attended to the wants of her precipitate underling, he thought it a good opportunity to proceed to a full explanation with the august couple, and he therefore remarked, with an ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... information as it comes in to you. I doubt he'll find anything on any time-line that's being exploited by any legitimate paratimers. This gang probably work exclusively on unpenetrated time-lines; this business Skordran Kirv came across was a bad blunder on some underling's part." He saw Dalla emerge from the control tower in breeches and boots and a white cloak, buckling on a heavy revolver. "I'll go change, now; you get busy calling Ranthar Jard. I'll see you when I ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... had, on his first sojourn in that house, been a great penance, though there were no supercilious servants, for all the waiting was by the familiar housekeeper, Mrs. Osborne, who had merely added an underling to her establishment on her master's return; but Alexis then had been utterly miserable, feeling guilty and ashamed, as one only endured on sufferance out of compassion, because his brother cast him out, and fresh from ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is on the threshold of young womanhood, she goes to stay with her grandfather in Ireland, with the trust from her mother of reconciling him and his son, Bertha's father. Bertha finds her grandfather a recluse and a miser, and in the hands of an underling, who is his evil genius. How she keeps faith with her mother and finds her own fate, through many strange adventures, is the subject of ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... the Piraeus by an order not to open our boxes, an ignorant underling being severely rebuked, and bid to 'look at the name on the boxes. Would you ask money from one who has done so much for Greece?' In short, we had a royal reception. The Prime Minister, the Metropolitan, and the other Ministers and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... friend's expense. The great principle of giving away what one does not want to keep is probably as familiar to the savage as to his civilized, or semi-civilized brother. That vivacious traveller, Pere Huc, tells us he has seen a Tartar chief at dinner gravely hand over to an underling a piece of gristle he found himself unable to masticate, and that the gift was received with every semblance of gratitude and delight. But there is a simple straightforwardness about an act like this which commends ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... moment there passed within call a decent lad who had emerged from the gardens and who might have been an underling in the stables. I hailed him and put the question of our possible admittance to the house. He answered that the master was away from home, but that he thought it probable the housekeeper would consent to do the honours. I passed my arm into Searle's. ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... next day went to work meditatively. Cowperwood, engrossed in his own plans, was not thinking of her at present. He was thinking of the next moves in his interesting gas war. And Aileen, seeing her one day, merely considered her an underling. The woman in business was such a novelty that as yet she was declasse. Aileen really thought nothing ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... the theatre. The next morning I placed the whole sum in the Funds, and I now had in all about fifteen thousand francs a year. This fortune enabled me to give up book-keeping at night, and also to resign my place at the Mont-de-piete, to the great satisfaction of the underling who stepped into my shoes. My friend died in 1827, at the age of sixty-three, after founding the great banking-house of Mongenod and Company, which made enormous profits from the first loans under the Restoration. His ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... hall of Holloway prison. The Deputy-Governor at once accosted us, and told us to wait, standing against the wall, until he could "see about us." Forgetting the rules and regulations, we resumed our conversation, until we attracted the attention of an underling, who marched up with a lordly air and sternly ordered us to stop talking. Presently two figures leisurely descended the flight of stone steps leading to the offices and the interior of the prison. I recognised one of these as the Governor of Newgate. He had evidently come ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... may indeed delight a fool, but rouses the indignation rather than the gratitude of a wise man. It struck him too that Cleopatra intended to make use of him, in the first place as a toy to amuse herself, and then as a useful instrument or underling, and this so gravely incensed and discomfited the serious and sensitive young man that he would willingly have quitted Memphis and Egypt at once and without any leave-taking. However, it was not quite easy for him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Davy. During his absence he kept a journal, from which copious and interesting extracts have been made by Dr. Bence Jones. Davy was considerate, preferring at times to be his own servant rather than impose on Faraday duties which he disliked. But Lady Davy was the reverse. She treated him as an underling; he chafed under the treatment, and was often on the point of returning home. They halted at Geneva. De la Rive, the elder, had known Davy in 1799, and, by his writings in the 'Bibliotheque Britannique,' ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... a place—and every lickspittle of the corrupt knaves of the corrupt and vile rotten-borough of Devizes, took a part in these un-Englishman-like, partial, cowardly, and disgraceful proceedings. Every expectant underling, every dirty, petty-fogging scoundrel showed his teeth, opened his vulgar mouth, and sent forth the most nauseous and disgusting ribaldry. A time-serving, place-hunting, fawning address to the Prince ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... ill-favoured man who haunts my house of a morning, with a large basket of loaves poised slantwise on his head, and converses in a strange nasal brogue with the cook, is not Mr. de Souza, "baker of superior first and second sort bread, and manufacturer of every kind of biscuit, cake," &c., but a mere underling. My intercourse with the head of the firm is confined to the first day of each month, when he waits on me in person, dressed in a smart black jacket, and presents his bill. Also on Good Friday he sends me a cake and his compliments, but the former, if ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... now and then, the twinkle of humor shone. He had a conciliatory way with those beneath him, and he considered all the mill hands in that class. To his superiors he was a frowning, yet daring and even presumptuous underling. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... vaults, only guarded by the janitor and the special policeman. The janitor was with us, that devil of a boy got us the combination, bit by bit; but you went out of your head after the storm, and Lilienthal was half betrayed by a drunken underling in our smuggling company. I had to clear out. I could not leave you to starve. It's the fifth of July, and we sailed the third. I lost ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... half-smothered in ice, in his hands, to protect it from the downpour, the rain making gargoyles of the points of the ribs of the umbrella. Evidently the breakfast was too important and the expected fee too large to intrust it to an underling. He ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp. But, my soul's bird, you hear me prate as though all were decided, when I have not yet taken counsel either with you or with my lady mother. Let us to the chamber, while these strangers find such fare as pantry ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... done worse then, like, rebellious head, Hast arm'd ten thousand arms against his life, That lov'd thee so, as thou wert made a king, Being his child; now he's thy underling! I have done worse: thrice I drew my sword, In three set battles for thy false defence! John hath done worse; he still hath took thy part. All of us three have smit our father's heart, Which made ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... khansamah[obs3], khansaman[obs3]; khitmutgar[obs3]; yardman. bailiff, castellan[obs3], seneschal, chamberlain, major-domo[obs3], groom of the chambers. secretary; under secretary, assistant secretary; clerk; subsidiary; agent &c. 758; subaltern; underling, understrapper; man. maid, maidservant; handmaid; confidente[Fr], lady's maid, abigail, soubrette; amah[obs3], biddy, nurse, bonne[Fr], ayah[obs3]; nursemaid, nursery maid, house maid, parlor maid, waiting maid, chamber maid, kitchen maid, scullery maid; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a fact, I believe I made its correspondence the most amusing and interesting feature in the paper. But, as his way was, Arncliffe lost his enthusiasm for it after a time, and, delegating the care of its remains to some underling, spurred me on to fresh ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... Majesty enjoyed. He did not like to be treated like a charwoman. As for the pension, he had never asked it, and counted it offensive to be treated as if he had shown a greed which required to be repressed. It came out, subsequently, that the letter had been written by an underling, but when Earl Russell was appealed to, he would only promise a salary when Dr. Livingstone should have settled somewhere! The whole transaction had a very ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... all he can agin him, and they listen very patiently to all he has to say, so as not to do things in a hurry. He is called "the devil's advocate," but he never gained a cause yet. The same form used to be gone through at Downing Street, by an underling, but he always gained his point. The nickname of the "devil's advocate" that I gave him did his business for him, he is no longer ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... Frenchman's rage may be imagined. He had risked his entire fortune on the expedition from Quebec; but what account did this back-stairs trick of courtiers take of his ruin? Radisson told him that he had been commissioned to offer him L100 a year for service under the English, and L50 each to his underling traders. Jean listened in sullen silence. The furs gathered by the Frenchmen were transferred to the holds of the English vessels, but Jean and his companions evinced no eagerness to go aboard for England. On September 4, just as ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... Zoraida was the sole owner of several thousand fair acres here and that Ruiz Rios stood in the position of general manager to his cousin. That he envied her her possessions, that it galled him to be her underling over these acres, was a fact which lay naked on top of many mere surmises. Once, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... enormous turban and clean white linen from head to foot, a stout Hindu appeared, superintending a tall meek underling who carried the customary "little breakfast" of the country—fruit, biscuits and the inevitable tea that haunts all British byways. As soon as the underling had spread a cloth and arranged the cups and plates Chamu nudged him into the background and stood to ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... addition to the tribute payable to the Porte.[159] Nor must it be supposed that this was the whole amount that was extorted from the unfortunate inhabitants. It was 'like master like man,' and every official and underling followed the prince's example, each being aware that a change of rulers meant dismissal for himself. The princess, too, had special sources of income, which were usually squandered in rivalry with the boyardesses, in jewellery, dress, and other luxuries.[160] It is said that one of the princesses, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... major-domo, had chosen her imperiously for his assistant and underling in the house of the priest, had informed her that she was to receive twenty-five lire a month for her services, besides food and lodging, and plenty of the good, red wine of Amato. To Lucrezia such wages seemed prodigal. She had never yet earned more than the half of them. ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... care,' continued my son, 'was to alter my appearance by a very fine suit of his own cloaths, and then I was admitted to his table upon the footing of half-friend, half-underling. My business was to attend him at auctions, to put him in spirits when he sate for his picture, to take the left hand in his chariot when not filled by another, and to assist at tattering a kip, as the phrase was, when we had a mind for a frolic. Beside this, I had twenty ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith



Words linked to "Underling" :   supporter, subsidiary, cog, helper, second banana, help, foot soldier, subordinate



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