toady
Americannoun
-
toadies
plural
verb (used with object)
-
toadies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
toadied,
past participle, past
-
toadying
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
toadies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
toadied,
past participle, past
-
toadying
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
toadysimple
-
toadiessimple
-
have toadiedperfect
-
has toadiedperfect
-
am toadyingprogressive
-
are toadyingprogressive
-
is toadyingprogressive
-
have been toadyingperfect progressive
-
has been toadyingperfect progressive
Past
-
toadiedsimple
-
had toadiedperfect
-
was toadyingprogressive
-
were toadyingprogressive
-
had been toadyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of toady
Explanation
You can call the kid who is always really nice to the teacher in hopes of getting a good grade a brown-noser or, if you want to sound clever, a toady. The word toady has a gross, yet engaging history. Back when medicine was more trickery than science, traveling medicine men would come to a town. Their assistant would eat a toad (you read that right) that was assumed poisonous so that the medicine man could "heal" him. Who would want that job, right? So toad-eater, later shortened to toady, came to mean a person who would do anything to please his boss.
Vocabulary lists containing toady
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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This Week In Words: March 29–April 4, 2020
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "T"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But what Raisi lacked in charisma, he more than made up for in subservience; the man, frankly, was a toady doing the supreme leader’s bidding.
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2024
But Alice’s complaints aren’t just about her million sitting in the bank and the toady outgrowths of fame.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2021
Can you bring one or the other of us around so that he doesn’t feel like a toady but I don’t continue to feel taken advantage of?
From Slate ● Jun. 21, 2016
We're supposed to find Lloyd pathetic, a toady.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2011
If he had to play toady, he would own the part today.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
The heads of those places have been fired or have stepped down, sometimes replaced by crypto industry toadies.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2025
Because that statement on top of his refusal to bring back Kilmer Abrego Garcia has me truly scared of what he and his toadies will do.”
From Salon ● Apr. 17, 2025
So how will the "usual suspects", the "softies", the "newbies" and the "toadies" shake down?
From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2025
But for his toadies, the stance is awkward, to say the least.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2024
Round such a man who was good-natured and philanthropic would gather flatterers and toadies; hence the suggestion to found a club with his own name and “button.”
From Pickwickian Studies by Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
Edouard gave Edouard a leg up into the Chamber of Deputies in 1919, and fora time Edouard toadied to Edouard in return.
From Time Magazine Archive
He toadied to his superiors, fought with his peers, and would never give credit to his juniors when he could claim it for himself.
From Time Magazine Archive
To keep Uganda economically afloat, Amin has toadied to oil-rich Arab states in return for financial aid; this could explain his fanatical anti-Israeli policy.
From Time Magazine Archive
At the very first blush of my new prosperity, the gentlemen who toadied me in the old, will recollect themselves and toady me again.
From International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 by Various
Miss Allen, who, in all other respects, toadied to and imitated Miss Potter, was disposed to be friendly to Mavis.
From Sparrows: the story of an unprotected girl by Horace W. C. (Horace Wykeham Can) Newte
And Abby Quinn is excellent as Natalie, mom’s campaign manager and toadying child.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
Benchley shared screenwriting credit with Carl Gottlieb, who also plays the toadying publisher of the Amity newspaper.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2020
More than social class, however, St. John’s has long symbolized a kind of old-Washington civility that represents either dignity or toadying, depending on your view.
From Slate ● Jun. 6, 2020
Goodell’s toadying may gratify individual owners, but it has undermined their collective trust.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 24, 2016
And thus they went on, relinquishing Fagerolles, whom they reproached for toadying the newspapers, for allying himself with their enemies and wheedling sexagenarian baronesses, to fall upon Claude, who now became the great culprit.
From His Masterpiece by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
