These words are comparable in that they all refer to someone who works for someone else, particularly in the capacity of a personal or household attendant. Valet denotes a male who performs such services as taking attendant. Valet denotes a male who performs such services as taking care of clothing and laundry for another man; in fact, such a person is often simply referred to as one’s man : My man goes everywhere with me. A valet is often called a gentleman’s gentleman, and his designation accurately reflects the true nature both of the man who is so employed and of the position itself. For, although it is true that any man of means can employ another male to act as his valet , the traditional valet in fact and fiction has been in service with a man of high social status. And the valet , probably because of the enforced intimacy of association with his gentlemanly employer, has always conducted himself, at least in fiction if not in fact, in the manner of a gentleman. (It is this customary intimacy with its inevitable destruction of dignity that made Madame Cornuel’s " No man is a hero to his valet " so pertinent.)

While one thinks of a valet in terms of devoted, deferential service, there is no implication of servility in the word valet as there is in flunkey and lackey . Originally, flunkey was a contemptuous term for a liveried manservant, especially one who served as a footman. Today flunkey designates any person who behaves in an excessively attentive, compliant or sycophantic way towards a person of superior rank, social position, wealth, etc. lackey , like flunkey , first denoted a footman, but the word had no pejorative connotation. Today’s lackey is the same kind of hanger-on as the modern flunkey , but his role is more demanding in that it calls for him to do work of an unattractive nature: a TV star followed by the usual entourage of flunkeys , each trying his best to be ingratiating; the parliamentary hack whose lackeys did all the low-level manoeuvring that kept him in office year after year.

Servant is a broad, neutral word with none of the connotations implicit in flunkey or lackey . It can refer to a personal or domestic attendant: a large household made up of a family of six plus two servants . It can denote any person who is employed by another: A policeman is the servant of the people. Finally the word can be used in impersonal contexts to mean anything that is used to serve the purpose or interests of something else: Science is the servant of mankind.

Orderly and batman both have special reference to military service. An orderly is a private or non-commissioned officer detailed to carry orders, take messages or do other service for an officer. The word is applied also to a male attendant at any hospital. Batman originally designated a soldier in the British army who was in charge of a bat-horse, that is, a horse which carried baggage, especially in a military campaign. Today batman can refer to any personal servant of an officer in the Commonwealth armed forces.