paddlefoot

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English

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Etymology

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From paddle +‎ foot.

Noun

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paddlefoot (plural paddlefeet)

  1. (military, aviation, slang) A member of the groundcrew.
    • 1944, Oram C. Hutton, Andrew A. Rooney, Air Gunner, page 116:
      The day after Tommy quit, a paddlefoot soldier on the base made a disparaging remark about Tommy to Sorrow Sorrel, the tail gunner, and Sorrow beat the living hell out of the paddlefoot.
    • 1968, MacKinlay Kantor, The Day I Met a Lion, page 34:
      He was a paddlefoot undeniably, and it seemed that I might have spared myself any worry about a hero's death. Still, I could never quite get rid of the lurking notion that he was marked for sudden and outlandish extinction.