handlanger
Syllables: hand·lang·er/ˈhændˌlæŋə/
handlanger noun: an unskilled assistant to an artisan. Also the alternative letter-case form of Handlanger.
Noun (1)
handlanger (plural handlangers)
- An unskilled assistant to an artisan.
- […] building himself brick by brick, with his wife as his only handlanger.1976, Het Suid Western
- An aide, an assistant.
- [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...2006, Richard Calland, Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power?, Cape Town: Zebra Press, →ISBN, page 177
- 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
Noun (2) capitalized: Handlanger
Handlanger (plural Handlangers)
- A low-ranking artillery soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army.
- Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, by His Majeſty's Command, preſented to the Houſe, Copy of a Convention between the King of Great Britain and the States General, on the one Part; and the Empreſs Queen of Hungary and Bohemia on the other— […] Artillery. […] 12 Gunners, or Handlangers. […] 2...1746 January 22, “Jovis, 22° die Januarii; Anno 20° Georgii II Regis, 1746”, in Journals of the House of Commons. From October the 17th, 1745, in the Nineteenth Year of the Reign of King George the...
- The Handlanger soldier was not a gunner or a bombardier, since he merely acted as labour on gun-sites […]1973, Albert Seaton, The Austro-Hungarian Army of the Napoleonic Wars (Men-at-arms Series), Reading, Oxon.: Osprey Publishing, →ISBN
Also used as
handlanger is also the alternative letter-case form of Handlanger.
Forms of handlanger
| plural | handlangers |
|---|---|
| plural | Handlangers |
Origin of handlanger
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).
Borrowed from German Handlanger (“handyman; henchman”), from Hand (“hand”) + langen (“to hand over, to give; to reach for something”) + -er (in the sense of someone who puts things into another person's hands, that is, someone whose task it is to help another person succeed). The word was loaned into Dutch and might have entered English through the Dutch form.
Questions about handlanger
- What does handlanger mean?
- Handlanger means an unskilled assistant to an artisan.
- What part of speech is handlanger?
- Handlanger is a noun.
- How do you pronounce handlanger?
- Handlanger is pronounced /ˈhændˌlæŋə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of handlanger?
- The plural of handlanger is handlangers.
Words near handlanger in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: handlanger (page history and authors); Handlanger (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-handlager.wav.
Cite this entry: “handlanger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handlanger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.