lickspittle
/ˈlɪkspɪtl/
lickspittle noun: a fawning toady; a base sycophant.
Noun
lickspittle (plural lickspittles)
- A fawning toady; a base sycophant.
- "I've found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining lickspittle!"1857, Charlotte Brontë, “chapter 5”, in The Professor
- "You're a suck, a suck and a lickspittle, that's what you are," said the pale man, his voice trembling with passion.1920, Sherwood Anderson, “chapter 21”, in Poor White
- Synonyms:
- brown noser, flatterer, sycophant, toady
- The practice of giving empty flattery for personal gain.
Verb
lickspittle (third-person singular simple present lickspittles, present participle lickspittling, simple past and past participle lickspittled)
- To play the toady; take the role of a lickspittle to please (someone).
- "[Y]ou take his side, and that is wrong! ...If some young school teacher, or some young lad, lickspittles to him, it's bad enough."1886, Aylmer and Louise Maude, The Light Shines in Darkness, translation of original by Leo Tolstoy, act 1
lickspittle meaning in Tamil
lickspittle in Tamil
- நச்சி பிழைப்போர்
Synonyms of lickspittle
Forms of lickspittle
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | lickspittles |
| alternative form | lick-spittle |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | lickspittles |
| present participle | lickspittling |
| past participle | lickspittled |
| past | lickspittled |
Origin of lickspittle
A compounding: lick (“pass one’s tongue over”) + spittle (“saliva”); the verb may derive by back-formation from the nominal derivation lickspittling (see below).
Words formed from lickspittle
- lickspittling
- lickspittlery
Questions about lickspittle
- What does lickspittle mean?
- Lickspittle means a fawning toady; a base sycophant.
- What is lickspittle in Tamil?
- Lickspittle in Tamil is நச்சி பிழைப்போர். See Lickspittle meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is lickspittle?
- Lickspittle can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce lickspittle?
- Lickspittle is pronounced /ˈlɪkspɪtl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of lickspittle?
- The plural of lickspittle is lickspittles.
Words near lickspittle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lickspittle (page history and authors); lickspittle (Tamil 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lickspittle.wav.
Cite this entry: “lickspittle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lickspittle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.