ingratiate
/ɪnˈɡɹeɪ.ʃi.eɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.24 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[H]e considered this offering an homage to his merits, and an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections."
- "[H]e would pat the children on the head when he saw them on the stairs, and ingratiate himself with them as far as he dared."
- "Her name was Michaela, but the men called her filthy things in dulcet, ingratiating voices, and she giggled with childish joy because she understood no English and thought they were flattering her and making harmless jokes."
- "And it is symptomatic of the many paradoxes of Lederer's life that of all the people in the room, Brotherhood is the one whom he would most wish to serve, if ever he had the opportunity, even though — or perhaps because — his occasional efforts to ingratiate himself with his adopted hero have met with iron rebuff."
- "The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is trying to crawl out from under its rock and ingratiate itself as an "equal opportunity employer" and a friend of progressive movements."
- "He ingratiated himself with the Kurdish bloc when he stood up to aggressive Turkish rhetoric about the Kurdish border in May."
Etymology
First attested in 1622. From Italian ingraziare or Medieval Latin *ingratiatus, from Latin in grātiam (“for the favor of”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ingraziare, *ingratiatus, in grātiam