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Sycophant |
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Sycophant
in the apparent original usage of the word in ancient Greece, a person who informed on the illegal export of figs from Attica. As early as the second half of the fifth century B.C. the word “sycophant” had entered everyday speech and acquired a broader meaning. In Athens and other Greek poleis it was applied to professional informers, slanderers, and blackmailers who gathered compromising information on influential citizens in order to bring them to court and thus settle political scores or receive a bribe or part of the property confiscated from the convicted person. REFERENCCELofberg.J.O. Sycophancy in Athens. Chicago, 1917.Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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No references found | We are at war under a Labour Government which sycophantically suckles up to the USA, and sends our young men and women to die due to their insufficient numbers and poor equipment. He doesn't savage members of the press who have written something he doesn't like while a room full of other journalists laugh gutlessly and sycophantically at their colleague's discomfort. This is another song about being abandoned," he drawls, and when the audience titter sycophantically, he mocks their reaction with a hollow laugh of his own. |
sycophantically |
Sycomore sycomore fig sycomore fig sycomore figs sycomore figs sycomores sycomores sycon Sycones syconia syconia syconium syconium SYCOP sycophancies sycophancies sycophancies sycophancy sycophancy sycophancy sycophant sycophant sycophant Sycophantcy sycophantic sycophantic sycophantic sycophantical sycophantical sycophantical sycophantically Sycophantishsycophantism Sycophantize Sycophantry sycophants sycophants sycophants Sycorax Sycorax sycosiform sycosis sycosis sycosis sycosis barbae sycosis barbae sycosis barbae sycosis vulgaris sycosis vulgaris sycosis vulgaris sycotic miasm SYCP SYCP3 SYCRC SYCS SYCTG SYCTOM Syd Syd Syda Syddansk Universitet | |||||||
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