end man

noun

a man at one end of a row or line.
a man at either end of the line of performers of a minstrel troupe, who plays on the bones or tambourine and carries on humorous dialogue with the interlocutor.

Origin of end man¹

An Americanism dating back to 1860–65

But always in the end man must come back to this moral tragedy of the soul.

It isn't the shy and the timid who get the applause; the clown in tinsel and the end man in cork divide easy honors.

Then they selected a wise young goose who had been end man the year before, and they made him their leader.

It was a hazardous journey, but he succeeded in crawling to within a few yards of the end man and passed a message along.

Firing had now ceased, and I took my time, and soon was the tail-end man of what was left of us.

April 19, 2024tortuous

[tawr-choo-uhs ]

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