Word of the Day: Sycophant

Sycophant:  noun \ˈsi-kə-fənt also ˈsī- & -ˌfant\

 : a person who praises powerful people in order to get their approval

:  a servile self-seeking flatterer

Examples of SYCOPHANT

1. <when her career was riding high, the self-deluded actress often mistook sycophants for true friends>
2. His press conference on January 11 was all aimed toward a single moment. The President was at his rostrum at the Élysée, with a crowd of courtiers, journalists, and sycophants herded behind a velvet rope. One reporter was allowed across the rope to put the same question, in exactly the same words, as he had put when Chirac had been nearing the end of his first term: Would he perhaps consider standing for a further five years? —Julian Barnes, New York Review, 29 Mar. 2007
3. [+]more

Origin of SYCOPHANT

Latin sycophanta slanderer, swindler, from Greek sykophantēs slanderer, from sykon fig + phainein to show — more at fancy

First Known Use: 1575

Related to SYCOPHANT

Synonyms

apple-polisher, bootlicker, brownnoser, fawner, flunky (also flunkey or flunkie), lickspittle, suck-up, toady

Related Words

yes-man; apparatchik, company man; hanger-on, leech, parasite, sponge, sponger; henchman, lackey, lapdog, minion, running dog, satellite, slave, stooge; admirer, cultist, devotee, enthusiast, fan, groveler, idolater (or idolator), worshipper (or worshiper), zealot; adherent, camp follower, convert, disciple, follower, me-tooer, partisan (also partizan), pupil, votary

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