lackey
Other forms: lackeys
A lackey is someone who works for someone else and tries to get ahead by kissing up to his superiors. For example, a lackey might carry his employer's luggage or fetch her cappuccinos.
A lackey can also be a servant who wears a uniform, like a butler, doorman, or valet. Only the richest, grandest, snobbiest families employ lackeys these days. Another name for a lackey is a manservant, who works in a private home serving the needs of his employer — like a maid, but male. From this earliest meaning came the sense of lackey as a "toady" or "sycophant," someone who fawns and flatters in order to get what they want. The word stems from the Middle French laquais, "foot soldier" or "servant."
-
a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantagetypes:apple polisher, bootlicker, fawner, groveler, groveller, trucklersomeone who humbles himself as a sign of respect; who behaves as if he had no self-respectgoody-goodya person who behaves extremely well in order to please a superior
-
a male servant (especially a footman)
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing lackey
In this classic Russian short story, a low-level bureaucrat's life is upended when he attempts to purchase a new overcoat. Learn these words from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
In this dystopian novel, famine and overpopulation has led to a strict Population Law that limits families to two children. Luke, an illegal third child, must spend his life in hiding — but when he meets Jen, another third child, he becomes involved in a dangerous plan to challenge the Population Law.
In this autobiography, the South African president describes his childhood, education, and the battles against Apartheid that led to his imprisonment for nearly thirty years.