lick someone's boots

lick someone's boots idiom
Act with extreme servility, as in This man wanted every employee to lick his boots, so he had a hard time keeping his staff. Shakespeare used this idiom in the form of lick someone's shoe in The Tempest (3:2). [Late 1500s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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