spaniel

plural spaniels

1. Any of various small to medium-sized breeds of gun dog having a broad muzzle, long, wavy fur and long ears that hang at the side of the head, bred for flushing and retrieving game.
2. A cringing, fawning person.

   Pro[theus].[…]Yet (Spaniel-like) the more ſhe ſpurnes my loue, / The more it growes, and fawneth on her ſtill;

   c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 33, column 1

present singular third person spaniels · US participle present spanieling · UK participle present spanielling · US participle past spanieled · US past spanieled · UK participle past spanielled · UK past spanielled

1. intransitiveTo follow loyally or obsequiously, like a spaniel.

   J. Sedgewick (1840), Timon, but not of Athens, page 200: “Always spanielling at the heels of power, the mitred Dignitaries displayed, from first to last, the most rancorous hostility against her.”

   3 more examples

   Antony: Do we shake hands.—All come to this!—The hearts / That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave / Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets

   c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   David S. Bell (2000), Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France, →ISBN, page 30: “Hence Duverger's famous question about de Gaulle's first spanielling Prime Minister makes political ('M. Debré, existe-t-il?'), but not constitutional sense.”

   The genre which differed from the world in order to advocate a better one - or the genre which spanielled at heel the sensationalist virtual reality world we will now arguably inhabit till the planet dies - had become by 2000, in triumpth or defeat or both, an institution for the telling of story.

   Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (2003), The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, page 65