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Sycophant vs Psychophant - What's the difference?

sycophant | psychophant |

As nouns the difference between sycophant and psychophant

is that sycophant is one who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another; a servile flatterer while psychophant is a sycophant, especially one with psychological problems.

As a verb sycophant

is to inform against; hence, to calumniate.

sycophant

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another; a servile flatterer.
  • * Dryden
    • A sycophant will everything admire: / Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire.
  • One who seeks to gain through the powerful and influential.
  • (obsolete) An informer; a talebearer.
  • * Sir Philip Sidney
    • Accusing sycophants , of all men, did best sort to his nature.

    Synonyms

    * (one who uses compliments to gain favor) ass-kisser, brown noser, suck up, yes man * (one who seeks to gain through the powerful) parasite, flunky, lackey * See also

    Quotations

    {{timeline, 1700s=1775 1787, 1800s=1841 1863, 1900s=1927}} * 1775 — , No. 3 *: This language, “the imperial crown of Great Britain,” is not the style of the common law, but of court sycophants . * 1787 — *: They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as they continually are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants , by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess rather than to deserve it. * 1841 — , Ch. 43 *: this man, who has crawled and crept through life, wounding the hands he licked, and biting those he fawned upon: this sycophant , who never knew what honour, truth, or courage meant... * 1863 — , Book IX Ch. XI *: It is only because military men are invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power, attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. * 1927–29' — *: Princes were always at the mercy of others and ready to lend their ears to sycophants .

    Derived terms

    (terms derived from sycophant) * sycophancy * sycophantic * sycophantish * sycophantism

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To inform against; hence, to calumniate.
  • * Milton
    • Sycophanting and misnaming the work of his adversary.
  • To play the sycophant toward; to flatter obsequiously.

    • psychophant

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (jocular) A sycophant, especially one with psychological problems.
  • * 1911 , The Word , Volume 13, Theosophical Publishing Co., page 178:
    • Socrates was not a sophist nor a psychophant .
  • * 2002 , University Microfilms, University Microfilms International, Dissertation abstracts international: The sciences and engineering , University Microfilms, page unknown:
    • Adolescents play out these interim roles of clown, miniature adult, social psychophant , bully, etc., to compensate for the loss of power that accompanies their perceived or real losses.
  • * 2008 , G. Ramachandhra Reddy, The challenges of governance in Indian democracy , APH Publishing, page 178:
    • It has destroyed the right ethos in administrative culture and brought to the fore psychophant and the dishonest...