- “Man, don’t be such a jeeves.” A friend of mine was saying this when someone interrupted a game we were playing because that person needed help.
Jeeves
noun; derivation
A slang term to describe person who has to follow orders from a higher, superior authority. Jeeves is a technically a term for butler. However, nowadays, it refers to a person who is “whipped.” The term derives all the way back to the 1930s. The term meant, “the perfect valet,” popularized by a character named Jeeves in P.G. Wodehouse novels. Nevertheless, no matter how rich your master is, being a butler is still being someone’s servant. Thus, a “whipped” person is always someone else’s servant. The search engine AskJeeves had also used this term because the logo was an Internet Butler who would delivered the information that you asked for.
Source : Conversation with a friend
Last modified: 10 June 2008