No matter how powerful, dictators have always needed subordinates—censors, propagandists, security guards, police officers, intelligence analysts, and local bureaucrats—to carry out their orders.
—
Seva Gunitsky,
Foreign Affairs,
1 Oct. 2026
Investigators have accused one of his subordinates of running a fraud scheme, though Kravchenko himself has not been charged or named a suspect.
Banks paid millions of dollars by today’s standards to bring along a botanist, artists, servants, his greyhound and scientific equipment.
—
Saar Shahar,
The Conversation,
12 Oct. 2026
The remains of these servants, or retainers, were first excavated from the funerary complexes at Abydos, eastern Egypt, which date from around 3000 BC, in the 1920s.
His underlings kidnapped and tortured a dealer who refused to pay, the indictment said.
—
Matthew Ormseth,
Los Angeles Times,
22 Oct. 2026
Lamb, who was once floated for the service’s top job, treats his current position as a kind of penance for past sins, both for himself and for his underlings.
There was a procession to the church of white clad handmaidens (tärnor), star boys (stjärngossar) and gingerbread men (pepparkaksgubbar) with candle wreaths on the maidens’ heads – now battery powered rather than actual flames.
—
Natasha Langan,
TheWeek,
29 Sep. 2026
Did Penelope, Helen of Troy, Athena, Calypso, and the rest of the Greek gals and goddesses deserve to be more epic than the attractive but flattened handmaidens even IMAX couldn’t enhance?
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.