spear carrier

spear carrier

1. An actor with a minor part in a production. I know you're disappointed to just be a spear carrier in the play, but if you do well in this role, maybe you'll get a bigger one next year.
2. By extension, a subordinate, especially one who has an unimportant role in some group or thing. Adam's just a spear carrier, we can make this decision without him. Have one of those spear carriers get me a cup of coffee!
See also: carrier, spear
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • carrier
  • spear
  • disappointed at
  • disappointed at (someone or something)
  • disappointed in (someone or something)
  • count (one's) blessings
  • count one's blessings
  • count your blessings
  • take second place
  • publicity
References in periodicals archive
"He played Antony and I was a humble spear carrier. To go full circle and have him appear with me in Midsomer Murders is wonderful.
``You either play Juliet or `third spear carrier on the right,' if you know what I mean.
"I was working in Nova Scotia and it was a case of going from playing lead roles to being the spear carrier again.
"In the great theatrical traditions of the RSC, I've gone from a spear carrier in Antony And Cleopatra to the lead in Henry VI," he grins.
Richard says his career has gone from spear carrier right up to playing Hamlet and the self-confessed Shakespeare fan has acquired a reputation for finding the human touch in the Bard's famous characters.
Of course, if the mainstream media weren't so in the hip pocket of the Abortion Industry and its academic spear carriers, they might actually read those who have actually read what Grossman/TxPEP have written, such as Dr.
It has long been a rite of passage for up and coming actors to start their careers in lowly roles known as "spear carriers" at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - that's how the likes of Dame Diana Rigg began.
This book contains an impressive number of stunning illustrations, including black and white stills showing throngs of spear carriers and other pageant participants, as well as eight full-color plates of program covers and costume sketches, one by MacLiammoir and two richly detailed pen and ink drawings by the accomplished costume designer Seamus MacCall.
FINALLY, the stars of ITV's epic Beowulf adaptation have been named, but what of the ordinary Anglo Saxons in the crowd - or the "spear carriers", as they call them in the theatre?
Ultimately, the argument of the administration and its leftist spear carriers, along with the open-borders crowd on the "right," is this: It doesn't matter who is in the country, and states have no power to decide who resides within their borders.
Criterium International 1.30 Saint-Cloud 1m G1 RUK/ATR Card page 26 LEARN, having been among the spear carriers behind the impressive Camelot in the Racing Post Trophy, today assumes the main role as Aidan O'Brien goes in search of a hat-trick in the EUR250,000 Group 1 Criterium International at Saint-Cloud.
Scott Parker, Darren Bent and Ashley Young struck a blow for the spear carriers. The least they deserve is Fabio Capello's faith when the European qualifiers resume in Cardiff next month.
Something of a "super culture" has evolved over the years, and there are even web sites and pages devoted to the opera supernumerary's point of view (see, for example, Spear Carriers in the Army of Culture, the site of the supernumeraries of the Opera Company of Philadelphia at www.phillysuper.com).
The bloggers seemed to be the ideological spear carriers for the Writers Guild, blotting out voices of restraint.
Apparently it hasn't occurred to the president or his spear carriers that these are exactly the kind of visas that some of the 9/11 hijackers possessed when they commandeered two jets and knocked down the World Trade Center, nearly razed the Pentagon with another, and crashed a fourth into the Pennsylvania countryside, having failed to direct their piloted projectile toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.