lickspittlenoun [ C ]
/ˈlɪk.spɪt.əl//ˈlɪk.spɪt̬.əl/disapprovinga person who praises and tries to please people in authority, usually in order to get some advantage from them:
He is a lickspittle who fawns before his aristocratic employers.
More examples
- He has to say things like that occasionally so his fans don't take him for an establishment lickspittle.
- The editor was denounced as a corporate lickspittle by much of the journalistic world.
- These lawyers are government hacks and lickspittles, who demonstrate their loyalty to their governments by defending the unconscionable.
- They surround themselves with hired flatterers and lickspittles.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Praising insincerely or too eagerly
- arse-licker
- bow and scrape idiom
- brown-nose
- crawler
- creep
- fawn
- flatter
- flattery
- flattery will get you nowhere idiom
- glad-handing
- grovel
- idealize
- left-handed compliment
- massage sb's ego idiom
- obsequious
- play up to sb
- schmooze
- servile
- slobber
- unctuous
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