lackey

“Flummoxed by the lack of resources”—in other words, aware that a penniless Uganda needed to reform or collapse—he “comfortably settled” into the role of Western lackey.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025

“Tell the brother he can stay, but he’s working for us,” Boy Kavalier tells a lackey, characterizing that instruction as “just a reminder that it’s my world. He just lives in it.”

From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2025

It was an unwelcome reminder of the lingering perception that the island nation somehow remains Moscow’s financial lackey.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 8, 2023

Caliban, Prospero’s malformed lackey, has been reclaimed by postcolonial critics as an example of an oppressed “other,” an enslaved man whose dignity has been denied by European imperialists.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 28, 2023

“You mean he needs a lackey for his dirty work.”

From "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas

“All of his lackeys are lining up to try to make everybody else’s life miserable to make their boss feel good.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025

He instead delegated the unpleasant task to one of his lackeys, or simply made it known that he wanted the person to quit.

From Salon ● Dec. 11, 2025

They all jump on a call to one of Lukas Mattson’s lackeys, where Shiv waves away a question about which one of them is the leader, saying, “We’re a pretty fluid group.”

From New York Times ● Apr. 16, 2023

Australia's spy chief last week hit out in his annual security threat assessment at former military pilots who turn to working for authoritarian regimes, describing them as "lackeys, more 'top tools' than 'top guns'".

From Reuters ● Mar. 1, 2023

Those soulless corporate lackeys were closing in on the egg at this very moment.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

Too confused to say a word, she lackeyed me into my coat and then ran upstairs.

From The Yeoman Adventurer by George W. Gough

Inanity dogs the footsteps of the classic tradition, which is everywhere lackeyed, through a long decline, by the pallor of reflected glories. 

From Style by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

It was nightmare, bereft of its pillows, grown somnambulistic; and London became the antechamber to Hades, lackeyed by idle dreams and peopled by mistakes.

From The Voice in the Fog by Harold MacGrath

This common body Like to a vagabond Flag upon the stream Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, To rot itself with motion.

From The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

His mind was lackeying Persis, who knew so many people and was having so good a time.

From What Will People Say? A novel by Rupert Hughes

This common body, Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, To rot itself with motion.

From Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

To him, too, the multitude—   …This common body,   Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,   Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide   To rot itself with motion.

From Shakspere and Montaigne by Jacob Feis

Lo! this loud, lackeying praise Will stay behind to greet the usurping moon, When they have cloud-barred over thee the West.

From New Poems by Francis Thompson