dog robber
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.38 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An officer's orderly or servant; a factotum; Someone whose job is to run errands for an officer.
Slang
Example Sentences
- "Get out of my daylight, you dog-robber, or I'll walk the little horse around your neck like a three-ringed circus."
- "“Waal—now! I tell you, boy, I knowed you—I knowed you the minute you called down that dog-robber of a barkeep""
- "The whiffet of the Carpet Bagger's organ at Tucson appears to be spoiling for a newspaper fight with the Miner, but the Miner cannot lower its dignity and character, or neglect the interest of its supporters, by noticing so contemptible a blockhead, dog-robber, liar, and slanderer."
- "If they would hire me for a dog-robber (a low menial), I would do it for a dime a day," he muttered, " just for the chance to hear them talk."
- "I had a so-called dog-robber, a native boy who washed my clothes and cooked for me."
- "He had detailed from his company a jovial Irish lad as orderly — the regular army name for the position is dog-robber."
Etymology
There are many conjectures about the origin of this term, ranging from the peacetime occupation of the title character in The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, to the use of the term dog for enlisted men, hence someone who took the best of everything away from the dogs to give to the officers. The most likely conjecture is that it comes from a 19th-century term for a contemptible person who stole scraps of leftover food that would otherwise be fed to dogs.