Word.ws English Dictionary

led captain

led captain noun: an obsequious sidekick.

Noun

led captain (plural led captains)

  1. (obsolete) An obsequious sidekick
    • January 8 1733, Jonathan Swift, letter to Lady Betty Germain
      Mr. Pope (with whom I lived) and Mr. Gay were then great favourites of Mrs. Howard, especially the latter, who was then one of her led-captains.
    • We hardly ſee a poor Peer, or a debilitated Knight, without his Toad-eater and Led-Captain; a Thing devoted to ſmile when he ſmiles, laugh loud when he does, and entertain his gueſts by ſubmitting himself to be the butt and jeſt of his keeper.1777, The Laughing Philosopher

Forms of led captain

pluralled captains

Questions about led captain

What does led captain mean?
Led captain means an obsequious sidekick.
What part of speech is led captain?
Led captain is a noun.
What is the plural of led captain?
The plural of led captain is led captains.

Words near led captain in the dictionary

  1. led
  2. LED analyser
  3. LED analysers
  4. led astray
  5. led by the nose
  6. led captain
  7. led captains
  8. led from the front
  9. led horse
  10. led horses
  11. led in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: led captain (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:

Cite this entry: “led captain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/led_captain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.