(A) A servile toady His heart too great, though fortune little, To lick a rascal statesman's spittle Swift Lictors Binders (Latin, ligo, to bind or tie) These Roman officers were so called because they bound the hands and feet of criminals before they executed the sentence of the law (Aulus Gellius ) The lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and strong Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into the throng Macaulay: Virginia Lid Anglo-Saxon, hlid; Dutch and Danish, lid Close is the Latin supine clus-um
() A compounding: lick (“pass one’s tongue over”) + spittle (“saliva”); the verb may derive by back-formation from the nominal derivation lickspittling (see below).“” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary