dog robber

Meaning

Noun

• A contemptible person, especially one who steals scraps of food.
• A menial; a low-level servant.
• An officer's orderly or servant; a factotum; Someone whose job is to run errands for an officer.
• One whose role is to acquire scarce goods, from military equipment to liquor or perfume, often staying barely within the letter of the law.
• Civilian clothing; mufti.

Origin

• There are many conjectures about the origin of this term, ranging from the peacetime occupation of the title character in The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, to the use of the term dog for enlisted men, hence someone who took the best of everything away from the dogs to give to the officers. The most likely conjecture is that it comes from a 19th-century term for a contemptible person who stole scraps of leftover food that would otherwise be fed to dogs.