English

Noun

toady ‎(plural toadies)

1. A sycophant who flatters others to gain personal advantage.
   • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 61

     But how could she have helped herself? I asked, imagining the sneers and the laughter, the adulation of the toadies, the scepticism of the professional poet.

   • 1912, Stratemeyer Syndicate, Baseball Joe on the School Nine Chapter 1

     "Go on, Hiram, show 'em what you can do," urged Luke Fodick, who was a sort of toady to Hiram Shell, the school bully, if ever there was one.

   • Charles Dickens

     Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs.

2. (archaic) A coarse, rustic woman.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir Walter Scott to this entry?)

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:sycophant

Derived terms

• toadyish

Translations

Verb

toady ‎(third-person singular simple present toadies, present participle toadying, simple past and past participle toadied)

1. (intransitive, construed with to) To behave like a toady (to someone).

Anagrams

• today, to-day