sycophant
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sy·co·phant

noun \-fənt also -ˌfant\\ˈsi-kə-fənt also ˈsī- & -ˌfant\

Definition of SYCOPHANT

: a servile self-seeking flatterer
sycophant adjective

Examples of SYCOPHANT

  1. <when her career was riding high, the self-deluded actress often mistook sycophants for true friends>
  2. 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

Origin of SYCOPHANT

Latin sycophanta slanderer, swindler, from Greek sykophantēs slanderer, from sykon fig + phainein to show — more at fancy
First Known Use: 1575

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