- Today's Word
Toady
TOH-dee
Definition
- (noun) A person who flatters or acts excessively submissive to gain favor with someone in power.
- (verb) To behave in a sycophantic or obsequious manner.
Example
The ambitious intern was seen as a toady, constantly praising the boss in hopes of a promotion.
Fun Fact
“Toady” originates from the term “toad-eater,” referring to 18th-century traveling performers who faked curing toad poisoning—a trick used by charlatans to sell their remedies. The assistant, or “toad-eater,” was the one who pretended to eat the poisonous toad to make the so-called cure seem miraculous. Over time, the phrase evolved into “toady,” meaning someone who fawns over powerful figures for personal gain.
(adjective) Characterized by a narrow-minded focus on one’s own group or environment; closed off to outside ideas or perspectives.
The company’s insular culture — promoting only from within, dismissing outside perspectives, and treating change as a threat — had quietly calcified into the biggest obstacle to its own growth.
Insular derives from the Latin insularis, meaning “of an island,” from insula — “island.” It entered English in the 17th century with its literal meaning of relating to islands before quickly acquiring its figurative sense of the psychological condition associated with island life — a worldview bounded by water on all sides, self-contained, and instinctively resistant to what lies beyond the shoreline. The British, as an island nation, have had a complicated relationship with the word ever since.