spear carrier

Definitions

1. 1

   A person in a play or movie with a minimal part

   A person in a play or movie with a minimal part; an extra.

   • [A]ctors would get annual raises through 2008, when even the lowliest spear carrier will make more than $1,500 a week for being on Broadway.
2. 2

   One who serves in a subordinate or menial role.

   • 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.
3. 3

   One who plays a leading or substantial role as a supporter, proponent, etc. representing…

   One who plays a leading or substantial role as a supporter, proponent, etc. representing a group, cause, or point of view.

   • Reed was the preternaturally boyish spear carrier for the religious right, the brash Evangelical who transformed the Christian Coalition into a populist power center.

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