gofer
nounUS /ˈɡoʊfɚ/
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.
1
Informal A worker who runs errands; an errand boy.
- 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".1989 December 3, Pam Mitchell, Ronnie Gilbert, “Carrying On The Honorable Tradition Of 'Protest Music'”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 21, page 9:
- More and more people agreed to help with the mailings, the hand-distribution of flyers, and telephonings. Others agreed to be gofers and fetchers.2001, William Hairston, Passion and Politics:
- Synonyms
- dogsbody