toady

Have you ever heard someone called a toady? It means someone who flatters excessive, probably in order to gain favor. 

I always thought it was an odd word. Could it have any connection to a toad? That seemed unlikely. 

Surprisingly, there is a connection to the amphibian. Back in the 17th-century in Europe, there were people known as toadeaters. They worked with magicians, showmen and charlatans. As an assistant, one of their jobs was to eat - or at least fake that they were eating - what the audience was told was a poisonous toad or frog. The entertainer (who might also have been selling cures) would then save the assistant by purging the poison from the toadeater. 

These assistants who would do anything to make the charlatan look good became symbols of someone who was very subservient to another. A "toadeater" became the term for a sycophant or any obsequious underling. In the early 1800s, it was shortened to toady and by the middle of that century toady was also being used as a verb meaning "to engage in sycophancy."