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Toady   Listen
verb
Toady  v. t.  (past & past part. toadied; pres. part. toadying)  To fawn upon with mean sycophancy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Toady" Quotes from Famous Books



... no!" said Aldous, drily. "He does it with intention. Nobody supposes him to be the mere toady. All the same I think he may very well overrate the importance of the class he is trying to make use of, and its influence. Have you been following the strike 'leaders' in ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... with ten minutes to play, the Convalescents, who had shown great form, required only twelve runs to win the match. Kippy and Gunner Toady shared the batting. A pretty glance to leg for two by the Gunner was all that could be taken out of the penultimate over, and Kippy at the pergola end faced Mark Styles, the postman, to take the first ball of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various

... away for the pioneers of the fifties and sixties, the bonanza kings of the seventies, the railroad magnates of the eighties, and they had built their huge and hideous mansions upon the hill that rose almost perpendicularly above the section where they made and lost their millions. Some wag or toady had named it Nob Hill and the inhabitants had complacently accepted the title, although they refrained from putting it on their cards. And now it ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... Marzials quotes this expression "hovering" as admirably descriptive. It is. By judicious selection, by innuendo, here a pitying aposiopesis, there an indignant outburst, the charges are heaped up. Swift was a toady at heart, and used Stella vilely for the sake of that hussy Vanessa. Congreve had captivating manners—of course he had, the dog! And we all know what that meant in those days. Dick Steele drank and failed to pay his creditors. Sterne—now really I know what Club life is, ladies and gentlemen, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... hoped when his sister announced her intention of taking this deplorable step that his future brother-in-law would at any rate prove to be a snob—he had a vague notion that all Americans were snobs—and that thus Mr. Jerome would have the saving grace to admire and toady him. But Mr. Jerome showed no signs of doing anything of the sort; he treated him with an austere and distant politeness that Lord Ashbridge could not construe as being founded on admiration and a sense of his own inferiority, for it was so clearly founded on dislike. That, however, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... circuit. One biscuit was all the refreshment which he permitted himself on the road from Cambridge to Norwich; although he consented to dismount at the end of every ten miles to stretch his limbs. Sidling up to Sergeant Earl, as there was no greater man for him to toady, Francis North offered himself as the old man's travelling companion from the university to the manufacturing town; and when Earl with a grim smile accepted the courteous suggestion, the young man congratulated himself. On the following ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... the trainer, as you say, two thousand plethra of the ager Leontinus, we still learned nothing adequate from it.[15] But who should not admire your system of instruction? And what is it? You are ever jealous of your superiors, you always toady to the prominent man, you slander him who has attained distinction, you inform against the powerful and you hate equally all the excellent, and you pretend love only for those through whom you may do some mischief. This is why you ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... that no sanctimonious Brahman would have dreamed of doing, for fear of being defiled by the touch of a casteless foreigner; so he was either above or below the caste laws, and it is common knowledge how those who are below caste cringe and toady. So he evidently reckoned himself above it, and the Indian who can do that has met and overcome more tyranny and terrors than the ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... of the younger boys, Henry Stowell by name, a lad who was a good deal of a sneak and who in time past had been a toady to Brown and Martell. On account of the great width of his mouth, ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... me! It was town talk the way he made her toady to his folks, even after he'd been cut off without a cent. Kittie told me herself the very sight of the old Bevins place over on Orchard Street gives her the creeps down her back. If not for old lady Scogin, ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... which took place years ago, but I have seen no reason to change the opinion then formed, that Mr. Parasyte, the principal, was a "toady" of the first water; that he was a narrow-minded, partial man, in whom the principle of justice had never been developed. He was a good teacher, an excellent teacher; by which I mean only to say that he had a rare skill ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... Mo Mercer's right-hand man: in the language of refined society, he was "Mo's toady;" in the language of Hardscrabble, he was "Mo's wheel-horse." Cash believed in Mo Mercer with an abandonment that was perfectly ridiculous. Mr. Cash was dying to see the piano, and the first opportunity he had alone with his Quixote he expressed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... justly due to those placed by Providence farther up the social scale. Yet doubtless there are persons to whom the sneakiest manner is agreeable,—who enjoy the flattery and the humiliation of the wretched toady who is always ready to tell them that they are the most beautiful, graceful, witty, well-informed, aristocratic-looking, and generally-beloved of the human race. You must remember that it depends very much upon the nature of a man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... always despised that poor toady," the bishop went on. "And yet here am I, and God has called me and shown me the light of his countenance, and for a month I have faltered. That is the mystery of the human heart, that it can and does sin against the light. What right have I, who have seen the light—and ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... 'Might toady a Grand-duke and bear-lead sucking peers—as well as another!' Soane answered with a gesture of disgust. 'Ugh, one might as well be Thomasson and ruin boys. No, doctor, that will not do. I had sooner hang myself at once, as poor Fanny Braddock ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... brine to welcome him; and if he come not in adequate quantity those of us who can afford the expense go swarming over sea to struggle for front places in his attention. In this blind and brutal scramble for social recognition in Europe the traveling American toady and impostor has many chances of success: he is commonly unknown even to ministers and consuls of his own country, and these complaisant gentlemen, rather than incur the risk of erring on the wrong side, take ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... not, however, get the impression that the majority of the Negroes are leaving the South. Eager as these Negroes seem to go, there is no unanimity of opinion as to whether migration is the best policy. The sycophant, toady class of Negroes naturally advise the blacks to remain in the South to serve their white neighbors. The radical protagonists of the equal-rights-for-all element urge them to come North by all means. Then there are the thinking Negroes, who are still further divided. Both divisions of ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... numerous little attentions, had so completely ingratiated himself with his patron, that he had become as necessary an appendage to the travelling equipage, as the portmanteau or the valet-de-chambre. This despicable toady was his lordship's double; he was a living type of the Gnatho of Terence; and I never saw him without remembering the passage that ends "si negat id quoque nego." Black was white, and white was black with toady, if ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity—the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... boozily wrangle over their cups, there was in their common dissipation a ground for mutual understanding. But in his sober moments the radical had the most supreme contempt for his tory associate, and, sometimes, could not suppress its manifestation. The other, however, was too great a toady to be too thin skinned. It was not convenient for him to be over-sensitive. In fact he was willing to swallow such insults ad infinitum if their donors would only furnish the wherewithall ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... reply to Antipater, who asked him to perform some disgraceful service for him. "I cannot," said he, "be Antipater's friend and his toady at ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... believe your letters when you write, sayin', 'I just about make a live of it'? Singular we think the country's goin' to hell, we fellers, in a two dollar suit, wadin' around in the mud or sweatin' around in the hayfield, while you fellers lay around New York and smoke and wear good clothes and toady to millionaires?" ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... Round Pond. But one never encounters these rarities, and Bungay and Bacon are no longer the innocent and ignorant rivals whom Thackeray drew. They do not give those wonderful parties; Miss Bunnion has become quite conventional; Percy Popjoy has abandoned letters; Mr. Wenham does not toady; Mr. Wagg does not joke any more. The literary life is very like any other, in London, or is it that we do not see it aright, not having the eyes of genius? Well, a life on the ocean wave, too, may not be so desirable as it ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... the old man's eye, and remembering that Gabinius the curiosity-dealer had that very morning been to him to enquire whether Arsinoe were not in fact one of his work-girls, and to repeat his statement that her father was a beggarly toady, full of haughty airs, whose curiosities, of which he contemptuously mentioned a few, were worth nothing, Plutarch was hastily asking himself how he could best defend his pretty protege against the envious tongues of her rivals; for many spiteful speeches of theirs had already come ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... weapon—his surest dodge. If she could be got to be attentive and affectionate to her grandfather, to visit him, and flatter him, and hover about him, much might be done. So thought Sir Henry. But do what he might, Lady Harcourt would not assist him. It was not part of her bargain that she should toady an old man who had never shown any special ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... Gentleman is the frigid product of a rigid mechanical drill, with the mien of a posture master, the skin-deep graciousness of a French Marechal, the calculating adventurer who cuts unpretentious worthies to toady to society magnates, who affects the supercilious air of a shallow dandy and cherishes the heart of a frog. True, he repeatedly insists on the obligation of truthfulness in all things, and of, honor in dealing with the world. His Gentleman ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... friends. The moment the drill was over, instead of acting like a wise man, and passing the matter over as an occurrence in no way intended to annoy him, he went aft and made a formal complaint to Captain Lascelles. As every man who chooses to encourage a toady can have one, so even had Lieutenant Spry, in the person of one of his men, who had watched the proceedings of the midshipmen, and now came forward as a witness against them. All three were summoned to the cabin, and they could not, of course, deny the charge. The captain had considerable ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop. James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big deal on Coates's shares. Ca' canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the Irish Field now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Storms, whom he encountered in Vienna, he heard more than from any other. She had crossed the Channel with her Chaplain, her spaniel, her toady, and her parrot, in search of enlivenment for her declining years, and hearing that her Apollo Belvidere was within reach, sent a message saying she would coax him to come and make love to an old woman, who adored ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... into the Thames after the peers and the bench. Is that man more modest than I, who take these institutions as I find them, and wait for time and truth to develop, or fortify, or (if you like) destroy them? A college tutor, or a nobleman's toady, who appears one fine day as my right reverend lord, in a silk apron and a shovel-hat, and assumes benedictory airs over me, is still the same man we remember at Oxbridge, when he was truckling to the tufts, and bullying the poor under-graduates in the lecture-room. An hereditary legislator, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... COL. TOADY: Ah, it were sacrilege to thus befoul The mighty soul whose penetration deep Hath by selection brought this galaxy Of excellence to lead this groping state In paths which lead to freedom ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... so intensely delighted that his eyebrows expanded, his eyes smiled, and he felt eager to toady to the Magistrate (by presenting the girl to him). He hastened to employ all his persuasive powers with his daughter (to further his purpose), and on the same evening he forthwith escorted Chiao Hsing in a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... TOADY. A fawning, obsequious parasite; a toad-eater. In college cant, one who seeks or gains favor with an instructor or popularity with his classmates by mean and ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... hangers-on ranged from Mathieu de Montmorency—of whom, in the words of Medora Trevilian it may be said, that he was "only an excellent person"—through respectable savants like Sismondi and Dumont, down to a very low level of toady and tuft-hunter. It is rather surprising that with such models and with no supreme creative faculty she should have been able to draw such creditable walking gentlemen as the Frenchman Erfeuil, the Englishman Edgermond, and the Italian Castel-Forte; and should ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... hero, like the first man wounded in a war. The town rallied to his support. Emma was a heartless wretch, who had insulted a faithful lover because he would not become as abject a toady to the hateful East as she was. Her new name became a byword. Her pronunciations were heard everywhere in the most ruthless parody. She was accused of things that she never had said, things that nobody could ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... been reading that old disguster, Boswell. Bah! I have no patience with the toady! I suppose "my mind is not yet thoroughly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether," and that is the reason why I cannot appreciate him, or his work. I admire him for his patience and minuteness in compiling such trivial ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... doubled, every office at court was held by a creature and toady of the Duke, bribery and corruption of all kinds ruled the State, and there appeared to be no limit to his lust and rapacity, and no barrier against the chicanery of ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... caste barriers unknown, a New Zealander, when meeting a stranger, does not feel called upon to act as though in dread of finding in the latter a sponge, toady, or swindler. Nor has the colonist to consider how the making of chance acquaintances may affect his own social standing. In his own small world his social standing is a settled thing, and cannot be injured otherwise than by his ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... thou dost preserve me and prosper me with fatness! Boundless abundance, yea, sublime abundance dost thou bring me! Praise, profit, pleasure, jollity, festivity, feasting, trains of victuals, eatables, drinkables, satiety, joy! Never will I toady to human being more, I now resolve it. Why, I can bless my friend or blast my foe, now that this delightful day has loaded me down with its delightful delightfulness! I've landed a legacy stuffed fit to burst, and ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... good with a revolver all right, but sho! you make him look like a plugged nickel when you go to makin' smoke, Dave," interrupted the toady. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... truth. They're like those cobwebbed, unwholesome-looking bottles which have lain a long time in cellars. You would hardly like to come in contact with them, and yet they often contain a clear and beautiful wine. This Mr. O'Rapley is a worthy man who knows a great deal, and although a bit of a toady to his superiors, expresses his opinions pretty freely behind ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... When he was about seventeen or eighteen he began to ask odd questions of one of his preceptors, a learned and ceremonious personage who, considering the extent of his certificated wisdom, was yet so singularly servile of habit and disposition that he might have won a success on the stage as Chief Toady in a burlesque of Court life. He was a pale, thin old man, with a wizened face set well back amid wisps of white hair, and a scraggy throat which asserted its working muscles visibly whenever he spoke, laughed or took food. His way of ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... suffered from Goneril's strange nature, might, with one of those hyberboles to which the resentful incline, have pronounced her some kind of toad; but her worst slanderers could never, with any show of justice, have accused her of being a toady. In a large sense she possessed the virtue of independence of mind. Goneril held it flattery to hint praise even of the absent, and even if merited; but honesty, to fling people's imputed faults into their faces. This was ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... in mind that the senator had a high reputation as a convivial host, and the toady was believed to be ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams



Words linked to "Toady" :   kotow, sycophant, groveler, court favour, flatter, adulator, ass-kisser, goody-goody, blandish, suck up, court favor, truckler, curry favor, groveller, crawler, bootlicker



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