sycophant

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
3. 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
4. Where his father liked to have sycophants, he likes to be with intellectuals. He likes confrontation. —Franklin Foer, New Republic, 14 Jan. 2002

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

Related Words: yes-man; apparatchik, company man; hanger-on, leech, parasite, sponge, sponger; henchman, lackey, lapdog, minion, running dog, satellite, slave, stooge; admirer, cultist, devotee, enthusiast, fan, groveler, idolater (or idolator), worshipper (or worshiper), zealot; adherent, camp follower, convert, disciple, follower, me-tooer, partisan (also partizan), pupil, votary

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See Synonym Discussion at parasite

Rhymes with SYCOPHANT

adamant, commandant, complaisant, confidant, confidante, cormorant, corposant, Corybant, covenant, dilettante, disenchant, gallivant, hierophant, interplant, pitcher plant, power plant, rubber plant, spider plant