Gofer
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A worker who runs errands; an errand boy. informal
"They were learning to do what in all my years in the music business I never saw — which was women running a record company, women producing concerts, women learning to be engineers, women moving into this absolutely all-male enclave. You never saw a woman in any of those positions, in any of that work except as secretaries and "go-fers"."
- 2 an employee whose duties include running errands wordnet
Example
More examples"They were learning to do what in all my years in the music business I never saw — which was women running a record company, women producing concerts, women learning to be engineers, women moving into this absolutely all-male enclave. You never saw a woman in any of those positions, in any of that work except as secretaries and "go-fers"."
Etymology
From go + fer (for), as in “go for coffee” or “go for that document” etc. Possibly also a pun on the rodent gopher, animals known for both their vast tunneling and their hoarding activities.
Related phrases
More for "gofer"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.