- 1跟班、走狗、聽命於人的僕從（貶義，強調沒有主見、唯命是從）
Someone who does whatever a more powerful person tells them to, without their own opinion — and the word says you look down on them for it. Historically a lackey was a real job: a servant in uniform who walked beside a rich man's carriage. That job is gone, but the flavour stayed. Today it is nearly always used as an insult in , business, or arguments: 'he is just a lackey of the boss', 'the minister's lackeys'. It carries a sting the neutral word 'assistant' does not have — you are saying the person has no mind of their own. It is often plural, and it usually appears with 'of' or a . Because it is so clearly rude, it belongs in opinion writing, speeches, and heated talk, not in a polite description of someone's job.
組成English borrowed this from Middle French 'laquais', a footman. Where French got it is genuinely unsettled — one line traces it through Spanish 'lacayo' and possibly back to Turkish 'ulak' (a runner or messenger), another suggests Arabic. Scholars differ, so I will not pretend it is settled.
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Lackeyname
- 1
A surname.
lackeynoun/ˈlæ.ki/
- 1
A footman, a liveried male servant.
- My dearest father,—I say nothing of them,—but I dare to speak of myself,—I can never be a monk,—if that is your object—spurn me,—order your lacqueys to drag me from this carriage,—leave me a beggar in the streets to cry “fire and water,”—but do not make me a monk.
- St. Martin [of Tours] looks round, first, deliberately;—becomes aware of a tatterdemalion and thirsty-looking soul of a beggar at his chair side, who has managed to get his cup filled somehow, also—by a charitable lacquey. St. Martin turns his back on the Empress, and hobnobs with him!
- 2
A fawning, servile follower.
- The latest act in the Madness of King Donald drama playing globally on every channel underlined the increasingly delusional world the anti-hero inhabits, his fantasies fed and indulged by a cast of sycophants, lackeys and straight grifters, all in it for what they can get.
lackeyverb/ˈlæ.ki/
- 1
To attend, wait upon, serve obsequiously.
- [T]he ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love, Comes deared by being lacked. This common body, Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, To rot itself with motion.
- So dear to Heav'n is Saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried Angels lacky her […]
- 2
obsoleteTo toady, play the flunky.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。