obsequious |
American Heritage Dictionary (1 definition)
- Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.
–adjective
Century Dictionary (5 definitions)
- Synonyms Servile, slavish, sycophantic. See obedience.
- Hence Servilely complaisant; showing a mean readiness to fall in with the will of another; cringing; fawning; sycophantic.
- Promptly obedient or submissive to the will of another; ever ready to obey, serve, or assist; compliant; dutiful.
- Absorbed in grief, as a mourner at a funeral.
- Funereal; pertaining to funeral rites.
GNU Webster's 1913 (3 definitions)
WordNet (2 definitions)
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(Despite claims to the contrary, to a devoted reader it becomes laughably improbable that this great story was authored by a psychic primate, like ourselves only bigger and endowed with superpowers, who cares about whether small primates cover their heads or bow in obsequious praise.)
When the host is introducing you, you should nod and smile in obsequious agreement.
And so, when Pope John Paul II summoned his cardinals to Rome last week for a three-day consistory, many of them spoke in obsequious sentences -- often quoting the pope's own words -- rather than giving him what he asked for: their own thoughts on issues affecting the future of the church.
- The Mwellret bowed in obsequious acknowledgment of his trespass.—Ilse Witch
"It's many a day since I've seen your honor at The Jolly Grig," murmured Marmaduke, with a certain obsequious familiarity that he reserved for old and well-known patrons.
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Pronunciations
/ (ŏb-sēˈkwē-əs, əb-)/
ahd pronounces "obsequious"
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Etymology
American Heritage Dictionary (1)
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Middle English, from Latin obsequiōsus, from obsequium, compliance, from obsequī, to comply : ob-, to; see ob- + sequī, to follow; see sekw-1 in Indo-European roots.
Century Dictionary
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