different between fawning vs lickspittle

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??n??

Verb

fawning

1. present participle of fawn

Adjective

fawning

1. Seeking favor by way of flattery; flattering, servile.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I scene iii^[2]:

     Shylock: How like a fawning publican he looks ! […]

Translations

Derived terms

• fawningly
• fawningness

Noun

fawning (plural fawnings)

1. Servile flattery.
   • c. 1599-1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III scene ii^[3]:

     Hamlet: No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, / And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee / Where thrift may follow fawning.

   • 1818, Hannah More, The Inflexible Captive

     Xantippus found his ruin ere it reached him, / Lurking behind your honours and rewards; / Found it in your feigned courtesies and fawnings.

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• lick-spittle

Etymology

A compounding: lick (“pass one’s tongue over”) + spittle (“saliva”); the verb may derive by back-formation from the nominal derivation lickspittling (see below).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: l?k?sp?tl, l?k?sp?t?l, IPA^(key): /?l?ksp?tl/, /?l?ksp?t?l/,

Noun

lickspittle (plural lickspittles)

1. A fawning toady; a base sycophant.
   • 1857, Charlotte Brontë, The Professor, ch. 5:

     "I've found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining lickspittle!"

   • 1920, Sherwood Anderson, Poor White, ch. 21:

     "You're a suck, a suck and a lickspittle, that's what you are," said the pale man, his voice trembling with passion.

   • 2013 May 23, "Note to politicians: Stop blaming the media for your problems (Editorial)," Globe and Mail (Canada) (retrieved 23 May 2013):

     In Ottawa, Senator Marjory LeBreton claimed in a speech on Wednesday that allegations of spending abuses by her colleagues were “hyped-up media stories” that were inevitable in a “town populated by Liberal elites and their media lickspittles.”

2. (by extension) The practice of giving empty flattery for personal gain.

Synonyms

• (fawning toady): brown noser, flatterer, sycophant, toady

Derived terms

• lickspittling (verbal noun)
• lickspittlery

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive and intransitive) To play the toady; take the role of a lickspittle to please (someone).
   • 1886, Aylmer and Louise Maude (translators), Leo Tolstoy (author), The Light Shines in Darkness, act 1:

     "[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."

Translations

References