toad-eater
(ˈtəʊdˌiːtə(r))
1. One who eats toads; orig. the attendant of a charlatan, employed to eat or pretend to eat toads (held to be poisonous) to enable his master to exhibit his skill in expelling poison.
| 1629 J. Rous Diary 45, I inquired of him if William Utting the toade-eater..did not once keepe at Laxfield; he tould me yes, and said he had seene him eate a toade, nay two. a 1704 T. Brown Sat. on Quack Wks. 1730 I. 64 Be the most scorn'd Jack-pudding in the pack, And turn toad⁓eater to some foreign Quack. 1761 Lady S. Lennox in Life & Lett. (1901) I. 53 Beckford, toad eater to the mountebank, as he has been not unaptly call'd. |
2. fig. A fawning flatterer, parasite, sycophant; = toady n. 2.
| 1742 H. Walpole Let. 7 July, Lord Edgcumbe's [place]..is destined to Harry Vane, Pulteney's toad-eater. 1807–8 W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 177 Encouraged by the shouts and acclamations of..toad-eaters. 1859 Green Oxf. Stud. ii. §1 (O.H.S.) 33 Shabbily-genteel toadeaters, ready at his call. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. iii. xxv, The toad-eater the least liable to nausea, must be expected to have his susceptibilities. |
b. A humble friend or dependant; spec. a female companion or attendant. contemptuous. Now rare.
| 1744 Fielding David Simple ii. vii. I. 212 David begged an Explanation of what she meant by a Toad-Eater... Cynthia replied,..It is a Metaphor taken from a Mountebank's Boy's eating Toads, in order to show his Master's Skill in expelling Poison. It is built on a Supposition..that People who are..in a State of Dependance, are forced to do the most nauseous things that can be thought on, to please and humour their Patrons. 1746 H. Walpole Let. to Mann 21 Aug., I am retired hither like an old summer dowager; only that I have no toad-eater to take the air with me. 1750 Coventry Pompey Lit. i. v. (1785) 16/2 Such female companions, or more properly toad-eaters. 1808 E. Sleath Bristol Heiress I. 139 Her..Ladyship's confidential woman, or rather toad⁓eater, which is..the most fashionable phrase of the two. 1853 De Quincey Autobiog. Sk. Wks. I. 351. |