Definition: a fawning subordinate
Who doesn’t love the word lickspittle (aside of people who prefer to not have the image of some flatterer licking another person’s spittle)? This word is fun to say, and appears to be even more fun to write, as it has enjoyed extensive use from the 17th century to the present, as one of the preferred insults for hordes of writers the world over.
Although the fuss is likely to subside this week with Lineker's return, it will have repercussions, both for the Tory policy of appointing its party lickspittles to run national institutions and for its plans to jail asylum seekers and their children before deporting them to Africa.
— Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Aus.), 14 Mar. 2023
Definition: a person who tries to get the approval of (an important or powerful person) by praise, flattery, etc.
You may have the idea that you know where the word brownnoser comes from, and we regret to inform you that you are probably correct. In such matters we try to convey information as delicately as we can, and can think of nothing more delicately phrased than the note we have under this word’s etymology: “from the implication that servility is equivalent to having one's nose in the anus of the person from whom advancement is sought.”
Definition: one who tries to gain favor with through a servile or obsequious manner
If lickspittle is a bit too … earthy of an insult, you can always use bootlicker instead. While this word looks like its been around for ages (after all, people have had boots for hundreds of years, now, and presumably flatterers have been will to lick them all the while), bootlicker appears to have entered our lexicon in the middle of the 19th century, in American use.
It is unfortunate that Sri Lanka has politicians who are willing to act as western bootlickers and take the country down to such a low level.
— Sri Lankan Guardian (Colombo, Sri Lanka), 13 Mar. 2023
Definition: a person who tries to get the approval and friendship of someone in authority by praise, flattery, etc.
The charming word apple-polisher comes from the traditional practice of children bringing a shiny (and thus presumably polished) apple as a gift to their teacher. Please note that, unlike some of the actions implied by words in this list (we’re looking at you toadeater and lickspittle), there is nothing wrong with polishing an apple.
Mr. Vance, whose opponent, Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, labeled him with a vulgar phrase that means the same thing as apple polisher, opined in an article in The American Conservative that the Republican Party should embrace the former president to turn out GOP voters.
— The Blade (Toledo, OH), 16 Nov. 2022
Definition: one given to obsequious flattery or attentiveness
Please be aware that ass-kisser is a word that we label as usually vulgar; you may wish to avoid its use in polite company. Please also note that we enter this word as a hyphenated compound: both ass-kisser and ass-kissing are typically spelled in this manner.
I get dozens of manuscripts from idiots like him—those God damn half-witter proletarian ass kissers.
— Ben Hecht, A Jew in Love, 1931
Definition: a person who is ingratiating or fawning
Among the many words that our language has for flatterers, suck-up is one of the more recent, dating to about 1970. It is a nicely trenchant insult for that particular sort of person at work; you know the one we’re referring to.
But because these personality types are prepared to invest more time communicating with their managers, the presence of a handful of them ensures that a team does not become invisible to the bosses. A few suck-ups can be good for everyone.
— The Economist (London, Eng.), 11 Mar. 2023
Definition: one that seeks association with persons of title or high social status
The word tuft may refer to a number of things, such as “a mound,” “a cluster,” or “a growing bunch of grasses or close-set plants”: these are not the sort of tufts that a tuft-hunter covets. Another, now obsolete, sense of tuft is “a gold tassel formerly worn by titled undergraduates at Cambridge or Oxford Universities.” Tuft-hunter began as university jargon, initially referring to one who sought to associate with undergraduates who came from nobility, but broadened its meaning to describe a more general sort of sycophant or social parasite.
That time-lag surely added to his chronic insecurity—he was an inveterate name-dropper and tuft-hunter, seldom happier than when sponging off the royal and the great.
— International Herald Tribune (Paris, Fr.),23 May 2001
Definition: a servile dependent or follower
The earliest meaning of lapdog is a quite literal one: “a small dog that may be held in the lap.” We know that people have had these kinds of pups for hundreds of years, as we’ve been referring to them as such since the middle of the 1600s. The use of lapdog to refer to fawning people, rather than diminutive canines, is fairly recent, in use since the first half of the 20th century.
Sadly, Wendy Philander, despite being in the job for little less than two months, has already indicated that she would rather be the lapdog of Winde and his provincial executive.
— Cape Argus (Cape Town, S. Afr.), 10 Mar. 2023
Definition: a fawning obsequious parasite
Did the toadeater actually eat toads? The answer to this is a resounding ‘maybe?’ We define an archaic sense of this word as “a mountebank's assistant who eats or pretends to eat supposedly poisonous toads to permit his boss to show his skill in expelling the poison.” Additional, more modern, senses of this word (which is often shortened to toady) include “a servile dependent” and “a menial hanger-on.”
The ‘reception committee head’ of the birthday event, H C Mahadevappa, repeated the same, saying the celebration was not by the Congress or under its symbol, but by Siddaramaiah’s wellwishers, friends, supporters. “None of us in the Siddaramaiah-75 Amrut Mahotsava committee is either a toad-eater or a believer in personality cult. We are firm believers of the Constitution and follow Ambedkarism,” Mahadevappa said.
— indian Express (Mumbai, Ind.), 14 Jul. 2022
Definition: a deceitful flatterer
Whillywha is primary found in Scottish use, and, to be honest, does not appear to be particularly common anymore there as well. It is included in this list because of its pleasing specificity, denoting not just a flatterer, but a deceitful one. The word also may refer to a coaxing deceitful speech, in which case it is usually used in plural form.
If ye gang near the South-Sea House,
The Whillywha’s will grip ye’r Gear,
Syne a’ the lave will fare the war,
For our lang biding here.
— Allan Ramsay, The tea-table miscellany, 1734
