Fawning vs Unctuous - What's the difference?
fawning | unctuous |
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 servile flattery
* (Hannah More)
(of a liquid or fatty substance) Oily or greasy.
* 1851 , , Moby Dick , ch. 96:
Rich, lush, intense, with layers of concentrated, soft, velvety flavor.
* 1872 , , Beauty and The Beast; and Tales of Home , ch. 3:
(by extension, of a person) Profusely polite, especially unpleasantly so and insincerely earnest.
* 1857 , , Volume the Second, page 14 (ISBN 1857150570)
* 1919 , , The Hohenzollerns in America , ch. 8:
As a verb fawning
is present participle of lang=en.As a noun fawning
is servile flattery.As an adjective unctuous is
oily or greasy.fawning
English
Verb
(head)citation, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.}}
Noun
(en noun)- Xantippus found his ruin ere it reached him, / Lurking behind your honours and rewards; / Found it in your feigned courtesies and fawnings .
unctuous
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- In a word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous properties.
- The halls and passages of the castle were already permeated with rich and unctuous smells, and a delicate nose might have picked out and arranged, by their finer or coarser vapors, the dishes preparing for the upper and lower tables.
- Then he thoroughly disliked the tone of Mr. Slope's letter; it was unctuous , false, and unwholesome, like the man.
- In superior circles, however, introduction becomes more elaborate, more flattering, more unctuous .