noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A toady or sycophant. US, derogatory

   "the involving of certain "bootlicks" into difficulty"

Verb

1. 1
   To seek favor from by fawning, servile behavior. derogatory, transitive

   "He had no social position to protect, no employer to bootlick."

2. 2
   try to gain favor by cringing or flattering wordnet
3. 3
   To engage in fawning, servile behavior. derogatory, intransitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

fawnkowtowsuck uptoadyadulatorapple polisher

Example

More examples

"He had no social position to protect, no employer to bootlick."

Etymology

From boot + lick.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.