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Jun 27, 2014
This week's theme
Words coined after animals

This week's words
squirrelly
canaille
monkeyshine
puce
toady

toady
This week's comments
AWADmail 626

Next week's theme
Words to describe people
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

toady

PRONUNCIATION:
(TOH-dee)

MEANING:
noun: A person who flatters or tries to please someone to gain favor.
verb intr.: To behave as a toady.

ETYMOLOGY:
From shortening of toad-eater. In times past, a quack employed an assistant who ate (or pretended to eat) a poisonous toad and was supposedly cured by the quack's medicine. From there the word extended to a person who would do anything to curry favor. Earliest documented use: 1827.

USAGE:
"Klein and the rest of Mission Control want a bunch of yes men and toadies."
Martin Shoemaker; Murder on the Aldrin Express; Analog Science Fiction & Fact (New York); Sep 2013.

See more usage examples of toady in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people. -Helen Adams Keller, lecturer and author (1880-1968)

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