{"id":775,"date":"2010-08-24T06:24:35","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T11:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattangre.com\/blog\/?p=775"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:53:02","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:53:02","slug":"visual-dictionary-lackey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/visual-dictionary-lackey\/","title":{"rendered":"Visual Dictionary: Lackey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Welcome to <A HREF=\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/index.php\/category\/gre-strategies\/visual-dictionary\/\">Visual Dictionary<\/A>, a series of posts about words that are better expressed in pictures.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-799\" title=\"lackey\" src=\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2010\/06\/lackey1-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2010\/06\/lackey1-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2010\/06\/lackey1.jpg 319w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/> Need your coffee made for you?  This guy is a <a href=\"\/\/dictionary.reference.com\/browse\/lackey\">lackey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are myriad English words for what most of us would call a &#8220;brown-noser&#8221; or &#8220;kiss-up&#8221; &#8212; that is, a &#8220;servile flatterer.&#8221;  (A thesaurus entry gave some more colorful slang terms: apple-polisher, bootlicker, teacher&#8217;s pet, yes-man).<\/p>\n<p>Here are some more GRE-likely words for a total brown-nosing bootlicker:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/flunky\">Flunky<\/A><\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/minion\">Minion<\/A><\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/sycophant\">Sycophant<\/A><\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/toady\">Toady<\/A><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A <A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/factotum\">factotum<\/A> isn&#8217;t necessarily so negative; it simply refers to someone who does menial work (we might call such a person a &#8220;gofer&#8221;).  Same with an <A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/underling\">underling<\/A>.<\/p>\n<p>A <A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/myrmidon\">myrmidon<\/A> doesn&#8217;t necessarily flatter, but he or she does follow orders without question.  The original Myrmidons were Achilles&#8217; soldiers in the Trojan War; Zeus made them from ants.  Ants!<\/p>\n<p>Some related verbs are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/dictionary.reference.com\/browse\/blandish\">Blandish<\/A> &#8211; To coax or influence by flattery.  (This word isn&#8217;t so negative.  You might use <i>blandishments<\/i> to get your spouse to mow the lawn).<\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/fawn\">Fawn<\/A> &#8211; To seek notice or favor through servile behavior or flattery.<\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/thesaurus.com\/browse\/kowtow\">Kowtow<\/A> &#8211; Literally, to touch your forehead to the ground while kneeling.  So, you get the metaphor.<\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/dictionary.reference.com\/browse\/truckle\">Truckle<\/A> &#8211; To submit or yield in an obsequious way.  In other words, to be totally pathetic.<\/li>\n<li><A HREF=\"\/\/dictionary.reference.com\/browse\/slaver\">Slaver<\/A> &#8211; To fawn (or also, to drool).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>The boss laughed to the visiting coffee-machine saleswoman.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t make my own coffee, little lady!&#8221; he said.  &#8220;I have my <em>lackeys<\/em> for that!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He didn&#8217;t realize his temp worker had heard him, but, after three months of being treated like a <em>factotum<\/em>, she wasn&#8217;t willing to <em>truckle<\/em> to his insults.<\/p>\n<p>For the next few days, she pretended to <em>fawn<\/em>: &#8220;Oh, that new tie makes you look so powerful,&#8221; she said.  &#8220;Your last Powerpoint presentation was really inspiring.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But really, she was just throwing him off her scent: if his coffee kind of tasted like it had been brewed through a filter that had spent some time in the men&#8217;s room urinal, he&#8217;d never suspect his loyal <em>myrmidon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what he gets for expecting me to be his <em>kowtowing toady<\/em>,&#8221; she thought.  &#8220;What do I care?  Now that I have such a prodigious lexicon, I&#8217;ll be off to grad school in no time.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to Visual Dictionary, a series of posts about words that are better expressed in pictures. Need your coffee made for you? This guy is a lackey. There are myriad English words for what most of us would call a &#8220;brown-noser&#8221; or &#8220;kiss-up&#8221; &#8212; that is, a &#8220;servile flatterer.&#8221; (A thesaurus entry gave some more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,13],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gre-strategies","category-verbal","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7375,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/7375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}