Difference between revisions 271877510 and 271877709 on enwiki

{{dablink|"Toady" redirects here. See also, [[Todi]].}} 
A '''sycophant''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] συκοφάντης ''sykophántēs'') is a [[servile]] person who, acting in his or her own self interest, attempts to win favor by [[flatter]]ing one or more influential persons, with an undertone that these actions are executed at the cost of his or her own personal [[pride]], [[principle]]s, and peer [[respect]]. Such a manner is called '(contracted; show full)

Another old explanation was that fines and taxes were at one time paid in apples, wine and oil, and those who collected such payments in kind were often called sycophants because they publicly handed them in. {{Fact|date=February 2007}}

==Popular culture==

*In Friends, the character Phoebe Buffet uses the word "sycophant" but does not know what it really means.

*The 1972 "Fliegender Zirkus" episode of Monty Python features a skit in which Eric Idle hosts a talk program about sycophancy. http://orangecow.org/pythonet/zirkus/zirkus-2.html⏎
*In Obert Skye's ''[[Leven Thumps]]'' series of children's books, "sycophant" also refers to a race of small furry creatures whose job is to aid people who have entered Foo.
*Alan the Sycophant was a bit character in the comic strip [[Dilbert]] by [[Scott Adams]].
*In the US television series [[The Office (US TV series)|The Office]], the character [[Dwight Schrute]] is a sycophant towards his boss, Michael Scott.
*In Stephenie Meyer's ''[[Breaking Dawn]]'', Garrett refers to Renata as Aro's "sycophantic guard."
*In Shakespeare's play ''[[The Tempest]]'' Caliban is sycophantic towards Stephano.
*In KMFDM's 1999 album Adios, Sycophant is the name of the second track
*In the movie Batman Begins, the character Bruce Wayne (played by Christian Bale) calls all of his birthday party guests "Sycophantic suck-ups"

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{wiktionarypar|sycophant|toady|hanger-on}}
*[http://www.answers.com/topic/toady Toady (definition)]
*[http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/parasite Toady (compared to a parasite)]
*[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/toady Toady (pronunciation)]

[[Category:Ancient Greece]]

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[[pt:Puxa-saco]]
[[ru:Сикофант]]
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