different between practice vs lickspittle

English

Etymology

See practise.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?ækt?s/

Noun

practice (usually uncountable, plural practices)

1. Repetition of an activity to improve a skill.

   Synonyms: rehearsal, drill, dry run, exercise, training, trial, workout

2. An organized event for the purpose of performing such repetition.

3. (uncountable, especially medicine, art) The ongoing pursuit of a craft or profession, particularly in medicine or the fine arts.
   • 2016, Raphael Vella, Artist-Teachers in Context: International Dialogues, Springer (?ISBN), page 53

     Which is the most demanding? I think that my practice as an artist is 'stronger' because it is the practice that best fuels and balances myself and that generates new knowledge for my other work as both arts educator and creative arts therapist.

4. (countable) A place where a professional service is provided, such as a general practice.

   Synonym: general practice

5. The observance of religious duties that a church requires of its members.
6. A customary action, habit, or behaviour; a manner or routine.

   Synonyms: custom, habit, pattern, routine, wont, wone

7. Actual operation or experiment, in contrast to theory.

   Antonym: theory

8. (law) The form, manner, and order of conducting and carrying on suits and prosecutions through their various stages, according to the principles of law and the rules laid down by the courts.

9. Skilful or artful management; dexterity in contrivance or the use of means; stratagem; artifice.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

10. (mathematics) A easy and concise method of applying the rules of arithmetic to questions which occur in trade and business.

Usage notes

British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand English spelling distinguishes between practice (noun) and practise (verb), analogously with advice/advise. In American English, the spelling practice is commonly used for both noun and verb.

Derived terms

Related terms

• practic
• practicable
• practical
• practitioner

Translations

Verb

practice (third-person singular simple present practices, present participle practicing, simple past and past participle practiced)

1. (US) Alternative spelling of practise

Derived terms

• practiced
• practicing

Further reading

• practice on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?prak.ti.ke/, [?p?äkt??k?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?prak.ti.t??e/, [?p??kt?it???]

Adjective

practice

1. vocative masculine singular of practicus

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