Other forms: toadies
A toady is somebody who flatters the powerful for favour. A shameless toady, the minister's toady, a pack of toadies.
It is thoroughly contemptuous and works as a verb too. The word comes from toad-eater, an assistant at a travelling medicine show who pretended to eat a toad, believed poisonous, so the quack could appear to cure him — the lowest job there was.
1nountoadySomebody who flatters the powerful for favour.
“The boss is surrounded by toadies who agree with everything he says.”
toady is an insult.
A shortening of toadeater, an assistant who pretended to eat a poisonous toad for a travelling quack.
From a shortening of toadeater + y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA