Word.ws English Dictionary

bootlicking

bootlicking noun: obsequious or servile behavior. Also the present participle and gerund of bootlick.

Noun

bootlicking (countable and uncountable, plural bootlickings)

  1. (figuratively) Obsequious or servile behavior.
    • The most obvious — for a junior struggling to lift himself from the mire by his bootlickings — is to go to his Chief and say — frankly — "Out! I need the experience and you need a rest. Clear off for a month or two. I'll cope."1951, The Library Assistant, volumes 44-45, page xiii
  2. (literally) The act of licking someone's boot, typically as a BDSM activity.
    • […] fist-fucking, black leather-studded collars, and bootlicking.1975 December 27, Michael Bronski, “"Sextool": It's Porn, It's Politics, But Is It Art?”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 26, page 16

Also used as

bootlicking is also the present participle and gerund of bootlick.

Forms of bootlicking

pluralbootlickings

Questions about bootlicking

What does bootlicking mean?
Bootlicking means obsequious or servile behavior.
What part of speech is bootlicking?
Bootlicking is a noun.
What is the plural of bootlicking?
The plural of bootlicking is bootlickings.

Words near bootlicking in the dictionary

  1. bootlicker
  2. bootlickers
  3. bootlickery
  4. bootlickier
  5. bootlickiest
  6. bootlicking
  7. bootlickings
  8. bootlicks
  9. bootlicky
  10. bootlid
  11. bootlids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bootlicking (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “bootlicking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bootlicking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.