ETYMOLOGY
from lick (vb.) + spittle (a house or place for the reception of the indigent or diseased)
EXAMPLE
“…Yes – and to hear his lickspittles speak, you would think that a man of great and versatile talents was a miracle; whereas there are some thousands of them publicly acknowledged in England at this day…”
From: Noctes Ambrosianae (J. Wilson) in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine,
Volume XVIII, July-December, 1825
Lexicophilia 