sycophant
/ˈsɪkəfænt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.20 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favour or advantage from another; a servile flatterer.
noun
One who seeks to gain through the powerful and influential.
Example Sentences
- "A sycophant will everything admire: / Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire"
- "VVhile a mean Crovvd of Sycophants attend, / And favvn and flatter, creep and cringe and bend; / The Fav'rite bleſſes his ſuperior State, / Riſes o'er all, and hails Himſelf the Great."
- "The latest act in the Madness of King Donald drama playing globally on every channel underlined the increasingly delusional world the anti-hero inhabits, his fantasies fed and indulged by a cast of sycophants, lackeys and straight grifters, all in it for what they can get."
- "[H]is mind had no eye to espy goodness; and therefore accusing sycophants, of all men, did best sort to his nature."
- "As therefore he began in the title, so in the next leaf he makes it his first business to tamper with his reader by sycophanting and misnaming the work of his adversary."
Etymology
First attested in 1537. From Latin sȳcophanta (“informer, trickster”), from Ancient Greek συκοφάντης (sukophántēs), itself from σῦκον (sûkon, “fig”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “to show, demonstrate”). The gesture of "showing the fig" was a vulgar one, which was made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig, which is itself symbolic of a σῦκον (sûkon), which also meant vulva. The story behind this etymology is that politicians in ancient Greece steered clear of displaying that vulgar gesture, but secretly urged their followers to taunt their opponents by using it. Cognate with Italian sicofante, Spanish sicofanta.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *bʰeh₂-, sȳcophanta, συκοφάντης
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
loyal follower