second banana
noun1
Colloquial, Idiomatic A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre.
- He grew disenchanted with playing second banana and never getting credit for the laughter.
2
Colloquial, Idiomatic A person who serves in a supporting, secondary, or subsidiary capacity; an assistant.
- The plumber left his second banana behind, to finish installing my new sink.
- When you want to be the boss, but you can't, it's not a lot of fun to be second banana.2012 August 30, Michael Smyth, “The lifeboat is filling up”, in The Province:
- Related terms
- top banana, second fiddle