1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, IV. Why, little ’un, you must be cracked, if you flunk out before we begin.
1847. The Yale Banger, 22 Oct. My dignity is outraged at beholding those who fizzle and flunk in my presence tower above me.
1853. Amherst Indicator, p. 253. They know that a man who has flunked, because too much of a genius to get his lesson, is not in a state to appreciate joking.
1871. John Hay, ‘Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell,’ in New York Tribune, Jan. But he never flunked, and he never lied, I reckon he never know’d how.
Flunkey, subs. (nautical).—1. A ship’s steward.
2. (American.)—An ignorant dabbler in stock; an inexperienced jobber.
1862. A Week in Wall St., p. 90. A broker, who had met with heavy losses, exclaimed: ‘I’m in a bear-trap,—this won’t do. The dogs will come over me. I shall be mulct in a loss. But I’ve got time; I’ll turn the scale; I’ll help the bulls operate for a rise, and draw in the flunkies.’
3. (American University.)—One that makes a complete failure in a recitation; one who flunks (q.v.).
1859. Yale Lit. Magazine. I bore him safe through Horace, Saved him from the flunkey’s doom.
4. (colloquial).—A man-servant, especially one in livery. Hence, by implication, a parasite or Toady (q.v.). Fr., un larbin.