Lickspittle - usage in 2013 - Miami Herald

"Their vision was a grittier, independent paper and “being a corporate suckup toady lickspittle didn’t fit in with our plans,” he tells Bezos. Turns out, one of the Silver Knight winners that year was none other than Jeff Bezos. Score one for the new owner."

Lickspittle is a compound word, combining two Old English words — lick and spittle, neither particularly attractive activities. Spittle brings to mind the mixture of saliva and tobacco that cowboys are prone to hack up into – what else – a spittoon. Both meanings are familiar: lick—to run the tongue over and spittle — a derivation of spit. But combine the two and you have one of many variations of a derogatory term for someone who flatters those in authority. In elementary school we knew him/her as a brownnoser or an apple polisher. As an adult you might choose a less euphemistic term: Weingarten’s suckup, or sycophant, toady, lackey, or now that you know what it means — a lickspittle. The Free Dictionary calls a lickspittle a flattering or servile person. Servile – of or befitting a slave – captures the idea of someone bowing and scraping to the master. The subordinate who feels the need to flatter his/her superiors is in a form of bondage just as much as a slave is.

https://judyhagey.com/word-of-the-week-lickspittle