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Webster 1913 Edition

Sycophant

Syc′o-phant

,
Noun.
[L.
sycophanta
a slanderer, deceiver, parasite, Gr. [GREEK] a false accuser, false adviser, literally, a fig shower; [GREEK] a fig + [GREEK] to show: cf. F.
sycophante
. The reason for the name is not certainly known. See
Phenomenon
.]
1.
An informer; a talebearer.
[Obs.]
“Accusing sycophants, of all men, did best sort to his nature.”
Sir P. Sidney.
2.
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.

Syc′o-phant

,
Verb.
T.
[CF. L.
sycophantari
to deceive, to trick, Gr. [GREEK].]
1.
To inform against; hence, to calumniate.
[Obs.]
Sycophanting
and misnaming the work of his adversary.
Milton.
2.
To play the sycophant toward; to flatter obsequiously.

Syc′o-phant

,
Verb.
I.
To play the sycophant.

Webster 1828 Edition

Sycophant

SYC'OPHANT

,
Noun.
[Gr. a fig, and to discover.] Originally, an informer against those who stole figs, or exported them contrary to law, &c. Hence in time it came to signify a talebearer or informer, in general; hence, a parasite; a mean flatterer; especially a flatterer of princes and great men; hence, a deceiver; an impostor. Its most general use is in the sense of an obsequious flatterer or parasite.

SYC'OPHANT

Definition 2024

sycophant

sycophant

English

Noun

sycophant ‎(plural sycophants)

  1. One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another; a servile flatterer.
    • Dryden
      A sycophant will everything admire: / Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire.
  2. One who seeks to gain through the powerful and influential.
  3. (obsolete) An informer; a talebearer.
    • Sir Philip Sidney
      Accusing sycophants, of all men, did best sort to his nature.

Synonyms

Translations

Quotations

1775 1787 1841 1863 1927
ME « 15th c. 16th c. 17th c. 18th c. 19th c. 20th c. 21st c.
  • 1775 — John Adams, Novanglus Essays, No. 3
    This language, “the imperial crown of Great Britain,” is not the style of the common law, but of court sycophants.
  • 1787 — Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 71
    They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess rather than to deserve it.
  • 1841 — Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Ch. 43
    this man, who has crawled and crept through life, wounding the hands he licked, and biting those he fawned upon: this sycophant, who never knew what honour, truth, or courage meant...
  • 1863 — Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book IX Ch. XI
    It is only because military men are invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power, attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess.
  • 1927–29 — Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of my Experiments with Truth, Part II, Preparing for South Africa, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai
    Princes were always at the mercy of others and ready to lend their ears to sycophants.

Derived terms

Verb

sycophant ‎(third-person singular simple present sycophants, present participle sycophanting, simple past and past participle sycophanted)

  1. (transitive) To inform against; hence, to calumniate.
    • Milton
      Sycophanting and misnaming the work of his adversary.
  2. (transitive) To play the sycophant toward; to flatter obsequiously.

Etymology

First attested in 1537. From Latin sȳcophanta ‎(“informer, trickster”), from Ancient Greek συκοφάντης ‎(sukophántēs), itself from σῦκον ‎(sûkon, “fig”) + φαίνω ‎(phaínō, “I 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 ****. The story behind this etymology is that politicians in ancient Greece steered clear of displaying that vulgar gesture, but urged their followers sub rosa to taunt their opponents by using it.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈsɪkəfænt/, /ˈsɪkəfənt/

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