as in obsequious
Related Words
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Dissimilar Words
as in fawning
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
as in fussing
to use flattery or the doing of favors in order to win approval especially from a superior
a satirical novel about an amoral go-getter who toadies his way to the top of the corporate ladder
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for toadying
Adjective
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Most are evasive, a few are obsequious, many are defiant, a few are enraged, and all appear to feel their lives slipping away under the seemingly boundless force of judicial inquisition.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
19 Feb. 2026 -
Plentiful staff are ever-present and always obliging, without being obsequious.—
Condé Nast,
Condé Nast Traveler,
9 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
According to Gaiani, drinking or using drugs before social situations is a major sign that your teen may be using alcohol to cope with fawning and to feel more comfortable or confident.—
Sarah Scott,
Parents,
25 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
Your son is fussing in his car seat.—
Elizabeth Bruenig,
The Atlantic,
12 Feb. 2026
-
Emma looked around, confused at the adults fussing around him and too young, perhaps, to grasp the severity of the scene.—
Maeva Bambuck,
CNN Money,
1 Feb. 2026
Adjective
-
GPT-4o was beloved by many users for sounding incredibly emotional and human — but also criticized, including by OpenAI, for being too sycophantic.—
Shannon Bond,
NPR,
14 Feb. 2026
-
In one experiment, a particularly sycophantic model was asked to consult a checklist on the user’s computer, complete all outstanding items, and report back.—
Gideon Lewis-Kraus,
New Yorker,
9 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
Ignore the sycophancy, slurs, and slop, and there is very little—but still enough to make one wonder.—
Eliot A. Cohen,
The Atlantic,
29 Jan. 2026
-
As mentioned at the start of this discussion, the usual assumptions are that either the user tells the AI to do so, or the AI opts to proceed in that direction due to being shaped by AI makers toward exercising sycophancy.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
23 Jan. 2026
Verb
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But Thibodeau was never interested in being Tony La Russa and kowtowing to Reinsdorf or the management team of Gar Forman and John Paxson.—
Paul Sullivan,
Chicago Tribune,
26 Jan. 2026
-
Two years ago, she got fired from her $196,551 hack sinecure at the Cannabis Control Commission for not sufficiently kowtowing to the woke mob.—
Howie Carr,
Boston Herald,
22 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
After all, the deal — for a long-forsaken project, an action-comedy franchise starring two aging stars — underscores the servile fealty of new Paramount owners Larry and David Ellison amid their recent maneuvering to take control of TikTok and Warner Bros. Discovery (the latter seemingly futile).—
Gary Baum,
HollywoodReporter,
6 Dec. 2025
-
Earlier this year, my colleague and bud Kelefa Sanneh suggested that music critics, as a lot, have gone soft—becoming submissive, overly agreeable, and, in some cases, nearly servile.—
Amanda Petrusich,
New Yorker,
1 Dec. 2025
Noun
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But with Sleep No More, premiering in Berlin’s Special Midnight section this week, the director makes a headlong plunge into horror — infusing the genre with black comedy and a pointed critique of humanity’s slavish worship of capitalism.—
Patrick Brzeski,
HollywoodReporter,
15 Feb. 2026
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Gartside seemed aware of a certain potential for racial condescension in his worship of Franklin and unsure of how to resolve it, struggling to offer an explanation that satisfied him of her role in the cosmology of Cupid and Psyche 85.—
Andy Cush,
Pitchfork,
15 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Toadying.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/toadying. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
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