Noun: handlanger
| Singular | handlanger |
| Plural | handlangers |
Sample Sentences
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[…] building himself brick by brick, with his wife as his only handlanger. [1976, Het Suid Western:]
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[E]very political leader has a handlanger. Like a toddler with a security blanket, the political handlanger is a necessary sop and sponge for all the tension that goes with the job. And there is nothing either disreputable or degrading about the role. Politics can be spiteful and demanding; the handlanger is the trusted confidant, the one person whom the leader can sound out, seek counsel from and trust. [2006, Richard Calland, Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power?, Cape Town: Zebra Press, →ISBN, page 177:]
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The time for talk truly is over now. The ANC will have to do the necessary, find its backbone and rein in [Jacob] Zuma, his cronies and their handlangers to avert an economic crisis happening on its watch. [2016 March 17, Judith February, “Which colour pill will the ANC choose?”, in Daily Maverick, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2016:]
Nouns inflected like handlanger
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Borrowed from Afrikaans handlanger (“assistant, helper”), from Dutch handlanger (“accomplice, henchman; assistant, helper”), analyzable as hand (“hand”) + langen (“to hand over or pass to”) + -er (“-er”, agent suffix) (in the sense of someone who puts things into another person's hands), from German Handlanger (“handyman; henchman”), from Hand (“hand”) + langen (“to hand over, to give; to reach for something”) + -er (“-er”, agent suffix). See: Dutch Nouns '
handlanger', German Nouns '
Handlanger'.