What does bootlick mean?
To bootlick is to flatter or fawn over someone — typically a superior, boss, or person of influence — in a conspicuously servile way, usually in order to gain favor, advancement, or protection. The word is informal and unambiguously contemptuous: calling someone's behavior bootlicking implies that their praise is insincere and self-serving rather than genuine admiration. It belongs to a small family of vivid English insults about sycophancy, alongside toadying, groveling, and kowtowing, and its most common forms in actual use are the derivatives 'bootlicker' and 'bootlicking'. In the workplace, politics, and other hierarchies, bootlicking describes the office flatterer who laughs at every joke and agrees with every opinion. Its literal imagery — one low enough to lick a master's boots — makes the contempt unmistakable, which is why the word remains a sharp, memorable term for obsequiousness wherever ambition meets flattery.
To behave obsequiously toward someone, especially a superior, through excessive flattery or servile attentiveness, typically to gain favor or advantage.
"He would never bootlick his managers, even when his career depended on it."
Intransitive; strongly derogatory and informal.
An act or instance of servile flattery; occasionally, a person who behaves in such a manner.
"His shameless bootlick at the meeting earned him nothing but eye-rolls."
Rare compared with the derived nouns 'bootlicker' and 'bootlicking'.
Applies only to the rare noun sense ('an act of servile flattery'); the verb does not pluralize.
"A lifetime of bootlicks had won him promotions but no respect."
English already had 'lickspittle' before it invented this even more literal insult: someone so servile they'd apparently lick your boots clean.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bootlick
Bootlick arose in English as a transparent compound of 'boot' and 'lick', coined as a vivid image of extreme servility — one so abject as to lick the boots of a superior. It emerged as slang, likely in the nineteenth century, joining older terms of the same spirit such as 'lickspittle' and 'toady'. The word's components are ordinary native English words, so it has no classical cognates; its relatives are the parallel compounds and derivatives it inspired, notably 'bootlicker' and 'bootlicking', which have largely displaced the bare verb in everyday speech.
Related word forms
How bootlick is actually used
Informal and distinctly derogatory; it carries strong contempt and is rarely used neutrally. The more common everyday forms are the derivatives 'bootlicker' (noun) and 'bootlicking' (noun/adjective). It is chiefly British and American, with no significant regional variation.
Easily confused with bootlick
Bootleg means to make, distribute, or record something illegally (such as liquor or recordings), whereas bootlick means to flatter someone servilely — the two share only their first element.
A bootlace is simply the lace of a boot, unrelated to the servile-flattery meaning of bootlick.