SYCOPHANT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Sycophant

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noun

Sycophant n.

An informer; a talebearer. (Obs.) "Accusing sycophants, of all men, did best sort to his nature."

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."

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Etymology of 'Sycophant'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sycophant" Quotes from Famous Books

... SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is ...

— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... then, here?" he said, seeing the servant had disobeyed his instructions and was following close behind him. He alone out of those scores of servants, those hundreds of fawning nobles, those thousands of sycophant souls who had but lately cringed before him, now accompanied the late master of France as he turned to leave the house in which ...

— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... the happiest period of his life when, as secretary to the Lord Chamberlain and associate of the highest in the land, he breathed his native atmosphere, the praises and flattery of a fickle world of fashion. But, time-server as he was, he was no sycophant. Leaving de Vere's service after a sharp quarrel, he was not ashamed to take up the profession of teaching in which he had already had some experience. We see him next, therefore, a master of St Paul's, engrossed in the not unpleasant duties of drilling his pupils for ...

— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... once the book about Mrs. Foat. He occupied the time in asking himself by what perversity of fate or of inclination such a charming creature was ranting upon platforms and living in Olive Chancellor's pocket, or how a ranter and sycophant could possibly be so engaging. And she was so disturbingly beautiful, too. This last fact was not less evident when she came down arranged for their walk. They left the house, and as they proceeded he remembered that he had asked himself earlier how ...

— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... fatal for mediocrity, so gracious for real power, is any adventitious distinction from birth, station, or circumstances of brilliant notoriety. In reality, the public, our never-sufficiently-to-be- respected mother, is the most unutterable sycophant that ever the clouds dropped their rheum upon. She is always ready for jacobinical scoffs at a man for being a lord, if he happens to fail; she is always ready for toadying a lord, if he happens to make a hit. Ah, dear sycophantic old lady, I kiss your ...

— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

Words linked to "Sycophant" : groveller, fawner, toady, apple polisher, ass-kisser, lackey, bootlicker, goody-goody