Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A toady.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A mountebank's boy who ate, or pretended to eat, toads (supposed to be poison-ous), in order to give his master an opportunity to show his skill in expelling poison.
  • A fawning, obsequious parasite; a mean sycophant; a toady.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A fawning, obsequious parasite; a mean sycophant; a flatterer; a toady.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A fawning, obsequious parasite; a mean sycophant or flatterer.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Originally, a charlatan's helper who ate (or pretended to eat) poisonous toads so that his employer could display his prowess in expelling the poison.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

toad +‎ eater, said to allude to an old alleged practice among mountebanks' boys of eating toads (popularly supposed to be poisonous), so that their masters could pretend to effect a cure. Compare toady.

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Examples

  • So you may guess that the matter on which he had sent for me was one of the gravest national import - Prince Albert, our saintly Bertie the Beauty, wanted a new aide-de-camp, or equerry, or toadeater-extraordinary, and nothing would do but our new Commander must set all else aside to see the thing was done properly.

    The Sky Writer Geoff Barbanell 2010

  • She was a toadeater here, too, seeking to curry favour with M.P. as with the rest, by fawning on her, in a way for which she could afterwards have hit herself.

    The Getting of Wisdom 2003

  • The captain was a rake and a bully and a toadeater, of course, with a loud and profane tongue, and he had had a bottle too many in the duke's travelling-coach.

    Richard Carvel — Complete Winston Churchill 1909

  • The temptation to lay hands on the cringing little toadeater grew too strong for me, and I picked him up by the scruff of the collar, -- he was all skin and bones, -- and spun him round like a corpse upon a gibbet, while he cried mercy in a voice to wake the dead.

    Richard Carvel — Complete Winston Churchill 1909

  • The captain was a rake and a bully and a toadeater, of course, with a loud and profane tongue, and he had had a bottle too many in the duke's travelling-coach.

    Richard Carvel — Volume 06 Winston Churchill 1909

  • The captain was a rake and a bully and a toadeater, of course, with a loud and profane tongue, and he had had a bottle too many in the duke's travelling-coach.

    Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill Winston Churchill 1909

  • The temptation to lay hands on the cringing little toadeater grew too strong for me, and I picked him up by the scruff of the collar, -- he was all skin and bones, -- and spun him round like a corpse upon a gibbet, while he cried mercy in a voice to wake the dead.

    Richard Carvel — Volume 04 Winston Churchill 1909

  • The temptation to lay hands on the cringing little toadeater grew too strong for me, and I picked him up by the scruff of the collar, -- he was all skin and bones, -- and spun him round like a corpse upon a gibbet, while he cried mercy in a voice to wake the dead.

    Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill Winston Churchill 1909

  • The captain was a rake and a bully and a toadeater, of course, with a loud and profane tongue, and he had had a bottle too many in the duke's travelling-coach.

    Richard Carvel Churchill, Winston, 1871-1947 1899

  • For in the achievements of the table, what toadeater besides can be compared with them?

    Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 01 of Samosata Lucian 1895

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