Word.ws English Dictionary

lickspittling

lickspittling is the present participle and gerund of lickspittle.

Meaning of lickspittle

Verb

lickspittle (third-person singular simple present lickspittles, present participle lickspittling, simple past and past participle lickspittled)

  1. (intransitive, transitive) 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

See all 3 meanings of lickspittle

Questions about lickspittling

What is lickspittling the present participle and gerund of?
Lickspittling is the present participle and gerund of lickspittle.

Words near lickspittling in the dictionary

  1. lickspit
  2. lickspits
  3. lickspittle
  4. lickspittled
  5. lickspittles
  6. lickspittling
  7. lickspout
  8. lickspouts
  9. lickt
  10. Lickteig
  11. Lickteigs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lickspittling (page history and authors); lickspittle (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: “lickspittling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lickspittling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.