second banana
noun
Forms second bananas
- noun (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.”
- noun (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.”
Synonyms
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “second banana”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details