printer's devil
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of printer's devil
First recorded in 1755–65
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
My newspaper career began at age 16 as a printer’s devil — cleaning presses, melting Linotype lead — for the weekly Ojai Valley News.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 15, 2024
Hubbs started as a printer’s devil with the Reeves County Record.
From Washington Times • Dec. 13, 2018
“Why, I’m going to have my uncle sent to the penitentiary, along with his publisher and his press agent and the whole crew, down to the merest printer’s devil who carried the blasted type.”
From The New Yorker • Mar. 13, 2017
Hatlo quit school in Los Angeles at 14, became a printer's devil, and in his spare time was a publicity man for Mack Sennett.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
One was Bill Clancy, and the other had been printer's devil to Hardy, of the 'Gazette', and was therefore known as Dick the Devil.
From The Book of the Bush Containing Many Truthful Sketches Of The Early Colonial Life Of Squatters, Whalers, Convicts, Diggers, And Others Who Left Their Native Land And Never Returned by Macfarlane, J.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.