sycophant

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“
He is said to be a mean sycophant, a spy paid by Caesar. "

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • While I was trying to find the right complimentary words without sounding like a sycophant, Kyra turned her hard little face on her mother. —  EQMM,August2007
  • But when Hunt proceeds to say that Byron had no sentiment; that La Guiccioli did not really care much about him; that he admired Gifford because he was a sycophant, and Scott because he loved a lord; that he had no heart for anything except a feverish notoriety; that he was a miser from his birth, and had “as little regard for liberty as Allieri,”—it is new enough, but it is manifestly not true. —  Byron
  • I explained to my son the definition of sycophant, then walked him through Yoo's relationship to the institutionalization of torture under President George W. Bush. —  WriteChic Press
  • The type has gone a bit dizzy over it And I plunged into the fray Sir," I began; and there followed 2,000 words of closely-woven argument, down to "I remain, Sir, your obedient Servant I read it through carefully, looked up "sycophant" in the dictionary, and wrote it all out again Then I showed it to Enid Why have you spelt 'sycophant' like that?" —  Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914
  • The serf, the cur, the sycophant is he Who feels no cringing motion twitch his knee When from a height too high for Shakespeare nods The wearer of a higher than Milton's crown. —  A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

sneak ·  flatterer ·  hypocrite ·  swindler ·  toady ·  flunky ·  slanderer ·  snob ·  fawner ·  impostor ·  coward ·  sponger

Used in the same contextWord Family

sycophant:   sycophants
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin sȳcophanta, informer, slanderer, from Greek sūkophantēs, informer, from sūkon phainein, to show a fig (probably originally said of denouncers of theft or exportation of figs) : sūkon, fig + phainein, to show; see bhā-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Formerly also sicophant; from French sycophante = Spanish sicofante = Italian sicofanta, from Latin sycophanta, sucophanta, Middle Latin also sicophanta, sicophantus, sicophans, from Greek συκοφάντης, an informer, a slanderer, a trickster, apparently from σῦκον, a fig, + φαίνειν, show, declare. The name would thus mean literally ‘fig-shower,’ of which the historical origin is unknown. (a) According to ancient writers, it originally applied to ‘one who informed on another for the exporting of figs from Attica’ (which is said to have been forbidden); or (b) to ‘one who informed on another for plundering sacred fig-trees’; (c) a third explanation makes it orig. ‘one who brings figs (hidden in the foliage) to light by shaking the tree,’ hence ‘one who makes rich men yield tribute by means of false accusations.’ All these explanations are doubtless inventions. (d) The real explanation appears to lie in some obscene use of σῦκον, fig, this word, and the L. ficus, fig, with its Roman forms, being found in various expressions of an obscene or abusive nature. This origin, whatever its particular nature, would explain the fact, otherwise scarcely explicable, that the original application of the term is without record.
  2. from sycophant, n.
 

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/ˈsɪkəfənt/
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