I'm your huckleberry

English

Etymology

Uncertain, but dates to the late nineteenth century in the United States. Compare huckleberry in the sense "person of little consequence", or the idiom huckleberry above a persimmon.

Phrase

I'm your huckleberry

1. (dated, informal, US) I am your partner; I will join you; I will work with you; I will fight you; I will dance with you.
   • 1879 April 16, Joseph Cook, “Ultimate America”, in Puck‎^[1], page 84:

     The other day, while enjoying a social game of seven-up with that pure and gentle poet, Jim Lowell, I said, “Jim, let’s take a drink.” Tears bedimmed his gentle and pure orbs, as in faltering accents he replied: “I’m your huckleberry.”

   • 1907, Edwin Lefevre, Sampson Rock of Wall Street: A Novel‎^[2], page 177:

     See here, if you want me to go into this or any other deal with you, I’m with you to the limit. If you don’t, and you just wish me to go along as your private secretary and professor of wisdom-toothing, I’m your huckleberry, and I’ll pay my own board-bills besides.

   • 1927, Walter Nobel Burns, Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest, →OCLC, page 138:

     Holliday took a quick step toward him. “I’m your huckleberry, Ringo,” replied the cheerful doctor. “That’s just my game.”