sycophant

noun

sy·​co·​phant ˈsi-kə-fənt 

 also  ˈsī-,

-ˌfant

: a servile self-seeking flatterer

sycophant adjective

Did you know?

In ancient Greece, sykophantēs meant "slanderer." It derives from two other Greek words, sykon (meaning "fig") and phainein (meaning "to show or reveal"). How did fig revealers become slanderers? One theory has to do with the taxes Greek farmers were required to pay on the figs they brought to market. Apparently, the farmers would sometimes try to avoid making the payments, but squealers—fig revealers—would fink on them, and they would be forced to pay. Another possible source is a sense of the word fig meaning "a gesture or sign of contempt" (as thrusting a thumb between two fingers). In any case, Latin retained the "slanderer" sense when it borrowed a version of sykophantēs, but by the time English speakers in the 16th century borrowed it as sycophant, the squealers had become flatterers.

Synonyms

• apple-polisher
• bootlicker
• brownnoser
• fawner
• flunky
• flunkey
• flunkie
• lickspittle
• suck-up
• toady

Choose the Right Synonym for sycophant

parasite, sycophant, toady, leech, sponge mean a usually obsequious flatterer or self-seeker.

parasite applies to one who clings to a person of wealth, power, or influence or is useless to society.

a jet-setter with an entourage of parasites

sycophant adds to this a strong suggestion of fawning, flattery, or adulation.

a powerful prince surrounded by sycophants

toady emphasizes the servility and snobbery of the self-seeker.

cultivated leaders of society and became their toady

leech stresses persistence in clinging to or bleeding another for one's own advantage.

a leech living off his family and friends

sponge stresses the parasitic laziness, dependence, and opportunism of the cadger.

a shiftless sponge, always looking for a handout

Examples of sycophant in a Sentence

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

be careful not to mistake sycophants for true friends

Recent Examples on the Web

The administration may be populated with sycophants and true believers, but Justice Department attorneys and Homeland Security officials are not stupid. —New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 18 May 2025

There are still sycophants and acolytes, but no savvy producers to make his head-scratching moves appear to make sense. —Laura Bassett, Rolling Stone, 14 Apr. 2025

This is the grim lesson—one that the ambitious sycophants who attach themselves to power have always been slow to learn—of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy, a series of fat, dense novels that filter the reign of Henry VIII through the rise and fall of his Machiavellian advisor, Thomas Cromwell. —Judy Berman, Time, 28 Mar. 2025

Heslov said that Clooney has made sure to keep his old friends close, so he isn’t surrounded by sycophants. —Thea Traff, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Latin sȳcophanta, borrowed from Greek sȳkophántēs, literally, "one who shows the fig," from sŷkon "fig" (perhaps in reference to an apotropaic gesture made by inserting the thumb between the index and second fingers) + -phantēs, agentive derivative of phaínein "to reveal, show, make known"; perhaps from the use of such a gesture in denouncing a culprit — more at fig entry 1, fantasy entry 1

Note: The origin of Greek sȳkophántēs, applied in ancient Athens to private individuals who brought prosecutions in which they had no personal stake, was already under debate by ancient writers. The "apotropaic gesture" hypothesis given here was presented early on by Arthur Bernard Cook ("CΥΚΟΦΑΝΤΗC," The Classical Review, vol. 21, issue 5 [August, 1907], pp. 133-36); Cook also usefully summarizes ancient speculation (as the idea that the original sȳkophántēs denounced those who illegally exported figs from Attica). The objection has been made that the basic notion "one who makes the fig gesture" does not account for the extremely negative connotations of the word ("slanderer, calumniator, etc."), but other explanations (as, for example, that a sȳkophántēs revealed figs hidden in a malefactor's clothing, or initiated a prosecution for something of as little value as a fig) seem even less likely. A more nuanced, if not entirely convincing account, based on presumed fig metaphors in Athenian culture, is in Danielle Allen, The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 156 passim. — The application of sycophant to a flatterer, which departs entirely from the Greek meaning, is peculiar to the history of the word in English. In the sixteenth century English writers seem to have applied sycophant in particular to slanderous accusers who had found their way into the retinue of the powerful. Once the word became a generally used label for ill-willed people close to those in power, it presumably became associated with obsequious flattery, a stereotypical negative quality of such people.

First Known Use

1575, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for sycophant

• confidante
• interplant
• ant
• aunt
• cant
• chant
• gant
• lant
• pant
• plant
• quant
• rant

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Kids Definition

sycophant

noun

sy·​co·​phant ˈsik-ə-fənt 

 also  -ˌfant

: a person who flatters another in order to get ahead

sycophantic

ˌsik-ə-ˈfant-ik

adjective

sycophantically

-ˈfant-i-k(ə-)lē

adverb