SUCKING (UP TO) Synonyms: 48 Similar and Opposite Words

sucking (up to)

verb

Definition of sucking (up to)

present participle of suck (up to)

as in buttering up

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Recent Examples of Synonyms for sucking (up to)

Verb

Yet, this will take a great deal of finesse, including pushing through a bill in parliament by buttering up Lord Hawthorne (Hugh Bonneville), who is willing to trade his vote for a night out with Susie’s brother, Jack (Harry Goodwins).

— Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 3 Sep. 2026
Ben spends the afternoon buttering up Ellie and praising her cake-icing skills, and even gives her the task of decorating the wedding cake.

— Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 31 Mar. 2026

Definition of buttering up

Verb

For other competitors in the accessible luxury market, Longchamp offers a valuable case study in bucking the trend of excessively fawning Gen Z content, at a time when luxury is at risk of losing its hold on youth culture.

— Joe Bobowicz, Vogue, 20 Oct. 2026
There was fawning coverage in international news outlets, and Bette Midler even wrote an entire mandarin duck picture book.

— Kathryn VanArendonk, Vulture, 14 Oct. 2026

Definition of fawning

Verb

One way to explain this peculiar comportment is the existence of a massive planet gravitationally influencing these bodies, coaxing their orbits into a roughly systematic arrangement.

— Phil Plait, Scientific American, 6 Nov. 2026
As a cabaret musician who entertains the troops, Penélope Cruz is a wickedly brassy marvel—vamping up a storm one minute, grumbling about her menstrual cycle the next, and eventually coaxing even Sebastián out of his mopey shell.

— Justin Chang, New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2026

Definition of coaxing

Verb

What distinguishes Camper, at least musically, is his deference to classic R&B signifiers without kowtowing to pastiche.

— Steven J. Horowitz, Variety, 27 Apr. 2026
After all, the series largely avoids other topical issues of modern campus life, from freedom of speech restrictions to administrators kowtowing to autocracies.

— Ben Travers, IndieWire, 5 Mar. 2026

Definition of kowtowing

Verb

Gill and Krukoff separately pushed their way into Indigenous communities, bribing or cajoling elders to forage vines and process toxic plant compounds known as curare.

— The New Yorker, New Yorker, 2 Nov. 2026
Pelle Larsson cannot be traded this season (per league rules), and cajoling Dallas to take Nikola Jovic’s four-year, $62 million deal would be a tough sell.

— Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 28 Oct. 2026

Definition of cajoling

Verb

There has always been friction between Reed and Helen, but in the main, Reed has been successful in using a shifting combination of wheedling, scolding, complimenting, and threatening to ensure Helen fullfils her mission objectives.

— Sophie Brookover, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2026
In a bid to rekindle the couple’s honeymoon phase, Yasmin troubleshoots by wheedling a chief executive role for him at payment processing company Tender (run by Max Minghella‘s inscrutable puppet-master Whitney Halberstram), and throwing her husband a lavish costume party for his 40th birthday.

— Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 18 Jan. 2026

Definition of wheedling

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Browse Nearby Words

sucking (up)

sucking (up to)

suckle

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“Sucking (up to).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sucking%20%28up%20to%29. Accessed 15 Nov. 2026.

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Synonyms of sucking (up to)

verb

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