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# sycophantic

«sycophantic» in Mova's school dictionary: **praising and agreeing with a powerful or important person…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

adjective; noun sycophant (a sycophant, sycophants); noun sycophancy

### meaning for a pupil

Sycophantic means praising and agreeing with a powerful or important person too much, in a fake way, to get something from them. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

In stories, a sycophantic courtier flatters the king; this tells the reader the character is not honest. In school life, the informal words are "teacher's pet", "suck-up" (US), "crawler" (UK, Australia) or "brown-noser" (rude). In honesty lessons, sycophancy is a kind of dishonesty: real kindness tells the truth politely.

### examples

- The sycophantic servants told the king every idea he had was brilliant. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x1)
- His sycophantic praise of the boss made everyone cringe. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x2)
- Don't be sycophantic; give your honest opinion. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x3)
- In the fable, the fox's sycophantic words tricked the crow into dropping the cheese. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x4)
- The emperor's sycophantic advisers praised his invisible clothes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x5)
- A good friend tells you the truth, not sycophantic flattery. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x6)
- The film's villain was surrounded by sycophantic followers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/#x7)

### note

Say "sik-oh-FAN-tik". Formal word. Person: a sycophant. Being polite or thanking someone is not sycophantic; it is sycophantic when the praise is fake and meant to gain favour.

### In the corpora

- [A long word for a yes-man is "sycophantic".](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/5-hallucinations-confident-made-up-answers/3/)
- [Being too keen to agree and praise is called being "sycophantic".](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/5-hallucinations-confident-made-up-answers/11/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «sycophantic» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sycophantic/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.