Definition
One who serves in a subordinate or menial role.
One who plays a leading or substantial role as a supporter, proponent, etc. representing a group, cause, or point of view.
In Context
- "A case sitting quietly in the Supreme Court’s in-basket promises to tell us more than almost any other about John G. Roberts Jr. and his evolution from spear carrier in the Reagan revolution to chief justice of the United States."
- "Britain is now widely dismissed—more often in sorrow than in anger—as just an American spear-carrier without any real force of its own."
- "Reed was the preternaturally boyish spear carrier for the religious right, the brash Evangelical who transformed the Christian Coalition into a populist power center."
- "Why would he do that? Because Hu Yaobang embodied the sense of historical mission in Chinese communism; spent his entire adult life honestly attempting to fulfil that mission; and was the spear carrier, after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, for not only economic, but also political, judicial and cultural reform."
Also Said As
- flunky
- minion
- underling
See Also
- doryphoros