sycophant
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About Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page.sy·co·phant
noun \-fənt also -ˌfant\\ˈsi-kə-fənt also ˈsī- & -ˌfant\Definition of SYCOPHANT
: a servile self-seeking flatterer
— sycophant adjective
See Examples of SYCOPHANT
- <when her career was riding high, the self-deluded actress often mistook sycophants for true friends>
- His press conference on January 11 was all aimed toward a single moment. The President was at his rostrum at the Élysée, with a crowd of courtiers, journalists, and sycophants herded behind a velvet rope. One reporter was allowed across the rope to put the same question, in exactly the same words, as he had put when Chirac had been nearing the end of his first term: Would he perhaps consider standing for a further five years? —Julian Barnes, New York Review, 29 Mar. 2007
- And swirling all around were coteries of agents, managers, execs, and moneymen; publicists and journalists, gawkers and sycophants. —Daniel Fierman et al., Entertainment Weekly, 9 June 2006
- Where his father liked to have sycophants, he likes to be with intellectuals. He likes confrontation. —Franklin Foer, New Republic, 14 Jan. 2002
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Origin of SYCOPHANT
Latin sycophanta slanderer, swindler, from Greek sykophantēs slanderer, from sykon fig + phainein to show — more at fancy
First Known Use: 1575
Related to SYCOPHANT
- Synonyms
- apple-polisher, bootlicker, brownnoser, fawner, flunky (also flunkey or flunkie), lickspittle, suck-up, toady
See Synonym Discussion at parasite
Rhymes with SYCOPHANT
Learn More About SYCOPHANT
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