sycophant

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favour or advantage from another; a servile flatterer.

   A sycophant will everything admire: / Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire.

2. 2
   verb

   To inform against; hence, to calumniate.

   As therefore he began in the title, so in the next leaf he makes it his first business to tamper with his reader by sycophanting and misnaming the work of his adversary.

Simplified etymology

Sycophant entered English in the 1530s from Greek sukophantēs, “informer,” literally a person who “shows the fig,” from sukon, “fig,” and phainein, “to show.” The literal image may refer to an obscene gesture; the alternative theory that it concerned informers against illegal fig exports is less likely. English first used the word for an informer or malicious tale-bearer, and the modern sense “servile flatterer” probably developed from ways of currying favour with authority.

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

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