Word.ws English Dictionary

Charlie McCarthy

Charlie McCarthy noun: a person under the control of another; a puppet or mouthpiece.

Noun

Charlie McCarthy

  1. (dated) A person under the control of another; a puppet or mouthpiece.
    • For the next thirty minutes, I was kind of a prop, his Charlie McCarthy, as he explained some of the things about the building.1999, Department of Arkansas Heritage, Outside the Pale: The Architecture of Fay Jones (page 12)
    • The president has perfected his role as politics' answer to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen—using the Democrats as his Charlie McCarthy.2008, Byron Williams, Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections on the Iraq War, page 127

Origin of Charlie McCarthy

After Charlie McCarthy, the dummy of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

Questions about Charlie McCarthy

What does Charlie McCarthy mean?
Charlie McCarthy means a person under the control of another; a puppet or mouthpiece.
What part of speech is Charlie McCarthy?
Charlie McCarthy is a noun.

Words near Charlie McCarthy in the dictionary

  1. charlie horses
  2. Charlie Kirk
  3. Charlie Kirked
  4. Charlie Kirking
  5. Charlie Kirks
  6. Charlie McCarthy
  7. Charlie Noble
  8. Charlie Nobles
  9. Charlie Papa
  10. Charlie Papas
  11. Charlie rat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Charlie McCarthy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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