Stooge

//stuːd͡ʒ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who knowingly allows himself or herself to be used for another's profit; a dupe.

    "I'd like to show you what a wipeout looks like from the board. I'm pretty good at getting wiped out, so I'll be the stooge."

  2. 2
    a victim of ridicule or pranks wordnet
  3. 3
    A magician's assistant who pretends to be a member of the audience.
  4. 4
    a person of unquestioning obedience wordnet
  5. 5
    A straight man.
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    A secret informant for police.
  2. 7
    A confederate; a person who is secretly working for the researcher, unknown to the study participant.
Verb
  1. 1
    To act as a straight man. intransitive
  2. 2
    act as a stooge, in a compliant or subordinate manner wordnet
  3. 3
    act as the stooge wordnet
  4. 4
    cruise in slow or routine flights wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
flunkeyflunkyacolyteactact as foilactor

Example

More examples

"I never thought you'd stooge for the police."

Etymology

Perhaps an abbreviation of Russian студе́нт (studént) [stʊˈdʲent]; the original meaning was “stage assistant, actor who assists a comedian”. It may have been a Yiddish vaudeville term.

Related phrases

straight man

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.