Word.ws English Dictionary

lackey

/ˈlæ.ki/

lackey noun: a footman, a liveried male servant.

Noun

lackey (plural lackeys)

  1. A footman, a liveried male servant.
    • My dearest father,—I say nothing of them,—but I dare to speak of myself,—I can never be a monk,—if that is your object—spurn me,—order your lacqueys to drag me from this carriage,—leave me a beggar in the streets to cry “fire and water,”—but do not make me a monk.1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 198
    • St. Martin [of Tours] looks round, first, deliberately;—becomes aware of a tatterdemalion and thirsty-looking soul of a beggar at his chair side, who has managed to get his cup filled somehow, also—by a charitable lacquey. St. Martin turns his back on the Empress, and hobnobs with him!1884, John Ruskin, “By the Rivers of Waters”, in “Our Fathers Have Told Us.”: Sketches of the History of Christendom for Boys and Girls who have been Held at Its Fonts, part I (The Bible of Amiens)...
  2. A fawning, servile follower.
    • The latest act in the Madness of King Donald drama playing globally on every channel underlined the increasingly delusional world the anti-hero inhabits, his fantasies fed and indulged by a cast of sycophants, lackeys and straight grifters, all in it for what they can get.2026 January 24, Michael Pascoe, “America’s mighty economic power has feet of clay”, in Michael West Media, archived from the original on 30 Jan 2026

Verb

lackey (third-person singular simple present lackeys, present participle lackeying, simple past and past participle lackeyed)

  1. (transitive) To attend, wait upon, serve obsequiously.
    • [T]he ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love,
      Comes deared by being lacked. This common body,
      Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
      Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
      To rot itself with motion.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    • So dear to Heav'n is Saintly chastity,
      That when a soul is found sincerely so,
      A thousand liveried Angels lacky her […]1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey...
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To toady, play the flunky.

Proper noun capitalized: Lackey

Lackey (plural Lackeys)

  1. A surname.

lackey meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

lackey in Hindi

liveried male servant
नौकर naukar

lackey in Tamil

கையாள், ஏவலன், அடிமை, குற்றேவல் செய்

lackey in Urdu

liveried male servant
خِدْمَت گار xidmat gār, خادِم xādim, نَوکَر naukar

lackey in Malayalam

flunkey, servant, footman
കിങ്കരൻ, ശിങ്കിടി, പോടകൻ, ഭൃത്യൻ, വിഭു, ഭൃത്യവേല ചെയ്യുന്നവൻ
sycophant, toady, flunkey
പാദസേവകൻ, അർത്ഥികൻ, വെെതാളികൻ, ബോധകൻ, നന്ദീകാരൻ, ഭട്ടൻ
More languagesFewer languages
lackey in Kannada
ತೊತ್ತಿಗ, ಅಡಿಯ
lackey in Tagalog
alipores, tuta
lackey in Arabic
خَادِم ḵādim
lackey in Thai
คนใช้ kon-chái, คนรับใช้ kon-ráp-chái, ข้ารับใช้, ขี้ข้า kîi-kâa
lackey in Vietnamese
đầy tớ

Synonyms of lackey

19 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of lackey

Forms of lackey

Noun
plurallackeys
alternative formlacquey
alternative formlacky
Verb
third-person singular presentlackeys
present participlelackeying
past participlelackeyed
pastlackeyed
Proper noun
pluralLackeys

Plural of lackey: lackeys

Origin of lackey

Borrowed from Middle French laquais, which is probably (via Old Occitan lacai?) from Spanish lacayo, itself perhaps from Italian lacchè and Greek λακές (lakés), from Turkish ulak. Another possibility is through French, from Arabic الْقَائِد (al-qāʔid). See French laquais.

Words formed from lackey

Phrases with lackey

Words that rhyme with lackey

8 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lackey

What does lackey mean?
Lackey means a footman, a liveried male servant.
What is lackey in Hindi?
Lackey in Hindi is नौकर (naukar). See Lackey meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is lackey?
Lackey can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce lackey?
Lackey is pronounced /ˈlæ.ki/.
What is the plural of lackey?
The plural of lackey is lackeys.

Words near lackey in the dictionary

  1. lackering
  2. lackers
  3. lackes
  4. lackest
  5. lacketh
  6. lackey
  7. lackey moth
  8. lackey moths
  9. lackeydom
  10. lackeyed
  11. lackeying

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lackey (page history and authors); Lackey (page history and authors); lackey (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lackey (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); lackey (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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