underlings

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“
While Obama's loyalty towards his underlings is admirable, Geithner is costing Obama large amounts of credability that once is gone cannot be easily recovered.

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Definitions (5)

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  1. noun One of lesser rank or authority than another; a subordinate.
  2. Word History
    Learning the meanings of affixes is a common approach to building vocabulary, but studying a group of words that share an affix can be fascinating in its own right. The suffix -ling, inherited from Common Germanic, already had several uses in Old English, all of which produced new nouns. It could, for example, be added to a noun to make a second noun that referred to something connected with or similar to the first noun; thus, adding this suffix to the Old English word yrth, "ploughland,” produced the Old English word yrthling, "plowman.” The suffix could also be added to an adjective to make a noun that referred to something having the quality denoted by the adjective: from Old English dēore, "dear, beloved,” was derived dēorling (Modern English darling). Adding -ling to an adverb produced a noun referring to something having the position or condition denoted by the adverb: from Old English under came underling. This last use of -ling is actually taken over from Old Norse. In Old Norse -ling was used to form diminutives; thus, our word gosling was a borrowing in Middle English of an Old Norse word, gæslingr, "gosling, a little goose.”

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Examples (50)

  • The survivors were now wiped out by Napoleon for the benefit of his Rhenish underlings, the spoliation being veiled under the term Mediatization . —  The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2)
  • Scott had turned all of them into fee clients -- the big-name professionals whose manuscripts were read by the underlings, the other clients who received letters signed by him but whom he never saw and with whom he had no involvement, the fee clients who were not people at all but abstraction. —  F ;SF - vol 104 issue 06 - June 2003
  • The staff of underlings is also complete, energetic, and well paid. —  The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others
  • While Obama's loyalty towards his underlings is admirable, Geithner is costing Obama large amounts of credability that once is gone cannot be easily recovered. —  CNN Political Ticker
  • Brown doesn't care about the fate of his underlings, they're all just cannon fodder as far as he is concerned. —  Iain Dale's Diary
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