| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
| sycophant |
| |
| SYLLABICATION: | syc·o·phant |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  s k  -fnt, s k- |
| NOUN: | A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Latin s cophanta, informer, slanderer, from Greek s kophant s, informer, from skon phainein, to show a fig (probably originally said of denouncers of theft or exportation of figs) : skon, fig + phainein, to show; see bh -1 in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | syc o·phantic (-f ntk) , syco·phanti·cal (-t-kl) —ADJECTIVE
syco·phanti·cal·ly —ADVERB
| | |
| |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
