as in brownnoser
a person who flatters another in order to get ahead
a transparent apple-polisher whose fulsome praise fooled no one
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for apple-polisher
Noun
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Small medieval villages are demolished in the wake of hell’s minions pouring forth from their dimension and into the next.—
Kazuma Hashimoto,
Rolling Stone,
31 Mar. 2025 -
At just 17 years old, Amanda Seyfried booked her breakout role in Mean Girls as Regina George’s bimbo minion who could predict the weather with her boobs.—
airmail.news,
airmail.news,
15 Mar. 2025
Noun
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In exchange, the fish will help the mussel get rid of parasites.—
Irene Wright,
Miami Herald,
21 Apr. 2025
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The parasite, named Sirenobethylus charybdis after the seawater-swallowing monster from Greek mythology, may represent a whole new family of insects.—
Paul Du Quenoy,
MSNBC Newsweek,
27 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Nacua is seen slapping the fan in the face and walking away.—
Ryan Gaydos,
FOXNews.com,
28 Apr. 2025
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Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid showed fans what clutch looks like in Game 3, closing the game on a 13-1 run after being tied with less than five minutes to go.—
Hannah Vanbiber,
New York Times,
27 Apr. 2025
Noun
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The anecdote illustrates the contrast in competence and grasp of real world dangers between Reagan’s team and Trump’s toadies — and also between these presidents themselves.—
George Skelton,
Los Angeles Times,
31 Mar. 2025
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His assessment is based not on the slack-jawed idolatry of elite-media toadies, but on sources nobody else thought to ring up and poke.—
Harpers Magazine,
Harpers Magazine,
26 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Local dive shops run trips to the wreck, where sea turtles mingle with coral, sponges and cascades of colorful fish.—
Marnie Hunter,
CNN Money,
26 Apr. 2025
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Newsletter Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news David Kaplan has been working with silk for decades, molding and shaping it into scaffolds, sponges, and films.—
Amy Paturel,
Discover Magazine,
22 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Republican lickspittles like Lindsey Graham and Jim Banks praised Trump and trashed Zelenskyy while Russian leaders rejoiced.—
Maureen Dowd,
The Mercury News,
4 Mar. 2025
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Of course, being a junior senator and attaching your name to legislation that has little chance of being enacted—none of those have bills passed—is very different from being Vice-President and chief lickspittle to Trump.—
John Cassidy,
The New Yorker,
22 July 2024
Noun
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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
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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
Noun
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But Trump contends it was only meant to cover former slaves and not the modern influx of immigrants.—
Bart Jansen,
USA Today,
1 May 2025
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The bite marks seem to confirm that the skeletons buried at the cemetery were gladiators — and not soldiers or slaves, as previously thought, according to Malin Holst, lecturer in osteoarchaeology at the University of York’s Department of Archaeology.—
Muri Assunção,
New York Daily News,
24 Apr. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Apple-polisher.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/apple-polisher. Accessed 5 May. 2025.
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