as in flunkey
a person who flatters another in order to get ahead
no one liked the office toady, who spent most of her time complimenting the boss on what a great job he was doing
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
as in to fuss
to use flattery or the doing of favors in order to win approval especially from a superior
a satirical novel about an amoral go-getter who toadies his way to the top of the corporate ladder
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
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Recent Examples of toady
Sean Keeler, The Denver Post, 27 Jan. 2025
The high toady will be 61 degrees and the low will be 39 degrees.
—Elainie Barraza, Orlando Sentinel, 12 Jan. 2025
Tori Otten, The New Republic, 27 Feb. 2023
And snobs are accused of toadying to aristocratic types.
—P.j. O'Rourke, Town & Country, 15 Sep. 2016
See All Example Sentences for toady
Noun
The Cowboys found a toady to cede to Jerry Jones’ every demand.
—Sean Keeler, The Denver Post, 27 Jan. 2025
The high toady will be 61 degrees and the low will be 39 degrees.
—Elainie Barraza, Orlando Sentinel, 12 Jan. 2025
Verb
Fox News has long been accused of peddling Trump’s falsehoods and toadying up to the former president.
—Tori Otten, The New Republic, 27 Feb. 2023
And snobs are accused of toadying to aristocratic types.
—P.j. O'Rourke, Town & Country, 15 Sep. 2016
See All Example Sentences for toady
Recent Examples of Synonyms for toady
Verb
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On top of this, her mother and sister are fussing about her future relationship status, which leads to them plotting some dates for her.—
Tommy Tuberville,
Newsweek,
7 Mar. 2025
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The world saw this five-man group as an ideal of friendship, a community working and living together, fussing and fighting but making rough beauty out of it.—
Rob Sheffield,
Rolling Stone,
21 Jan. 2025
Noun
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What may be worse is that a gaggle of sycophants and groupthink team members underneath the Dark Empath—the direct reports—create a ruthless echo chamber for the king or queen at the top of Mt. Stupid.—
Dan Pontefract,
Forbes,
11 Mar. 2025
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Of course, Veep’s sycophants, buffoons, and backstabbers bear little resemblance to the vanguard of our latest regime.—
Judy Berman,
TIME,
20 Feb. 2025
Verb
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Under that system, countries acknowledged the cultural and political superiority of China and expressed deference to Chinese authority—including literally kowtowing before the Chinese emperor in order to trade with China.—
Elizabeth Economy,
Foreign Affairs,
13 June 2017
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Amazon, and all of its attendant properties, is owned by Jeff Bezos, who has proven in recent months to have no issue kowtowing to authoritarians for the sake of his bottom line.—
Maureen Lee Lenker,
EW.com,
20 Feb. 2025
Noun
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Republican lickspittles like Lindsey Graham and Jim Banks praised Trump and trashed Zelenskyy while Russian leaders rejoiced.—
Maureen Dowd,
The Mercury News,
4 Mar. 2025
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Of course, being a junior senator and attaching your name to legislation that has little chance of being enacted—none of those have bills passed—is very different from being Vice-President and chief lickspittle to Trump.—
John Cassidy,
The New Yorker,
22 July 2024
Verb
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The biggest of them all, Joe Rogan, spent the final weeks of the campaign giving many hours of fawning airtime to Trump—and to his running mate, J. D. Vance, and his key allies, such as Elon Musk—before endorsing Trump on the eve of the election.—
Andrew Marantz,
The New Yorker,
17 Mar. 2025
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The mind-boggling design for the measuring spoon first wowed the Internet in 2016 after a video promoting the Kickstarter campaign went viral and spawned widespread media coverage fawning over the unique design.—
Ars Technica,
Ars Technica,
14 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Tatlin scholarship is whispery on his time in Kyiv, for the excellent reason that Stalin’s minions torched most evidence of it.—
Jackson Arn,
The New Yorker,
10 Mar. 2025
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But the largest driving force behind the return-to-work mandates, suggest the early scholarship, is CEOs feeling lonely without minions.—
Dan Vergano,
Scientific American,
12 Feb. 2025
Verb
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There’s a reason scouts once drooled over Williams’ potential.—
C.J. Holmes,
New York Daily News,
8 Mar. 2025
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Symptoms from scorpion stings — such as burning at the sting site, drooling.—
Rick Sobey,
Boston Herald,
3 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Back in Montana, every trip Jacob and company take to Bozeman and back is inevitably fraught with peril — if not instigated by dastardly rich guy Donald Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) and/or his henchman Banner Creighton (Jerome Flynn), then by the pitiless nature of extreme weather.—
Matt Brennan,
Los Angeles Times,
14 Mar. 2025
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In Lynch’s festering neo-noir mystery from 1987, Hopper plays a chronic villain perpetually sipping from a tank of amyl nitrate and handing out hits as a way to manipulate his henchmen.—
Alison Foreman,
IndieWire,
14 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Toady.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/toady. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
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