Crossword clues for sycophant
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sycophant \Syc"o*phant\, n. [L. sycophanta a slanderer, deceiver, parasite, Gr. ? a false accuser, false adviser, literally, a fig shower; ? a fig + ? to show: cf. F. sycophante. The reason for the name is not certainly known. See Phenomenon.]
An informer; a talebearer. [Obs.] ``Accusing sycophants, of all men, did best sort to his nature.''
--Sir P. Sidney.-
A base parasite; a mean or servile flatterer; especially, a flatterer of princes and great men.
A sycophant will everything admire: Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire.
--Dryden.
Sycophant \Syc"o*phant\, v. t. [CF. L. sycophantari to deceive, to trick, Gr. ?.]
-
To inform against; hence, to calumniate. [Obs.]
Sycophanting and misnaming the work of his adversary.
--Milton. To play the sycophant toward; to flatter obsequiously.
Sycophant \Syc"o*phant\, v. i. To play the sycophant.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1530s (in Latin form sycophanta), "informer, talebearer, slanderer," from Middle French sycophante and directly from Latin sycophanta, from Greek sykophantes "false accuser, slanderer," literally "one who shows the fig," from sykon "fig" (see fig) + phainein "to show" (see phantasm). "Showing the fig" was a vulgar gesture made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig, itself symbolic of a vagina (sykon also meant "vulva"). The modern accepted explanation is that prominent politicians in ancient Greece held aloof from such inflammatory gestures, but privately urged their followers to taunt their opponents. The sense of "mean, servile flatterer" is first recorded in English 1570s.\n\nThe explanation, long current, that it orig. meant an informer against the unlawful exportation of figs cannot be substantiated.
[OED]
Wiktionary
n. 1 One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another; a servile flatterer. 2 One who seeks to gain through the powerful and influential. 3 (context obsolete English) An informer; a talebearer. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To inform against; hence, to calumniate. 2 (context transitive English) To play the sycophant toward; to flatter obsequiously.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Sycophant was a term used in legal system of Classic Athens but in modern English it refers to someone practicing sycophancy i.e. obedient flattery.
The word sycophant has its origin in the legal system of Classical Athens. Having no police force and only a limited number of officially appointed public prosecutors, most legal cases of the time were brought by private litigants. By the fifth century BC, however, this practice had given rise to abuse by litigants who brought unjustified prosecutions. Such a litigant was called a "sycophant". The word retains the meaning of "an informer" in Modern Greek and French; but in modern English, the meaning of the word has shifted to that of an "insincere flatterer", see sycophancy.
Usage examples of "sycophant".
In the center of the barracks he found his key man, the obvious barracks bully, a monster of a man, naked, hairless, fondling two bawds and being fed whiskey by sycophants.
In Kansas City the usual gaggle of esurient sycophants who cannot differentiate between the Artist and the Art rushed the podium for autographs and cheap thrills such as the pressing of flesh.
To the surprise of all, who knew how scrupulous of insult he was, -- how indulgent and forbearing, -- he turned away from the trimmer and the sycophant without recognition.
Antigonus was in the tepidarium, soaking in the warm water, with a retinue of sycophants.
His homily led off with such fulsome praise of Monsieur, that, from that day forward, he lost all his credit, and sensible people thereafter only looked upon him as a vile sycophant, a mere dealer in flattery and fairy-tales.
Yet these hard lessons proved useful, for they taught me to mistrust the impudent sycophants who openly flatter their dupes, and never to rely upon the offers made by fawning flatterers.
It should have been offensive even to his merchant friends and colleagues and sycophants to see the pure and simple white stola draped across both his shoulders, over the expensive and gaudy garments he wore.
Antipater did what he could, dividing the task of obtaining the bullion between his sons Phasael and Herod, and one Malichus, a secret supporter of a faction determined to rid Judaea of King Hyrcanus and his Idumaean sycophant Antipater.
Young Irelanders, and most of the Old Irelanders, were exasperated, and in their speeches and newspapers denounced Lamartine as the enemy of liberty, the sycophant of England, and the incubus of the French provisional government.
Friends and sycophants were gathering round the governor of Lapan, addressing him with the half-congratulatory and half-envious admiration usually shown by people towards a man who has done something which, though they may consider it reckless and foolhardy, they cannot help wishing they had had the gall to do themselves.
Then the walls stiffened, hardened even as her eyes had done, hemmed her in, coming closer and closer with the courtyards, the long dark passages, the little rooms with their latticed windows, the Twelfth Duke and the Fifth Duke, Aubrey Poole and Lucy Tourneur, the jesters, the pastry-cooks, and the boy whose tongue was cut out, dust rising on the deserted floors, tapestries tap-tapping against the cold stone of walls room-thick, the gay-nosed apothecary with his squint and love-philtre, and, last of all, the present Duchess with her train of sycophants.
Yet these hard lessons proved useful, for they taught me to mistrust the impudent sycophants who openly flatter their dupes, and never to rely upon the offers made by fawning flatterers.
But what if I should advance farther, and assert, that if Epicurus had been accused before the people, by any of the sycophants or informers of those days, he could easily have defended his cause, and proved his principles of philosophy to be as salutary as those of his adversaries, who endeavoured, with such zeal, to expose him to the public hatred and jealousy?
Too many Poles were willing accomplices sucking up to the Germans like a bunch of sycophants, parroting all their ideas.
Saddam has few advisers, and those he turns to are sycophants who generally tell him exactly what he wants to hear.