syco-

Of, pertaining to, or derived from the waxy resin of an Australian species of fig, Ficus rubiginosa.

Divination by means of figs or fig-leaves.

A species of fig-tree, Ficus Sycomorus, common in Egypt, Syria, and other countries, and having leaves somewhat resembling those of the mulberry.

In botany, fleshy fruit with the ovaries borne in a hollow receptacle, as in the fig.

Feeding on figs.

1. Flatterer, servile flattery; toady.
2. The character or characteristics of a sycophant.

1. A person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage.
2. A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people; especially, "of princes and great men".
3. Etymology: (in Latin, in the form of sycophanta), "informer, talebearer, slanderer," from Latin sycophanta, from Greek sykophantes, originally, "someone who makes the insulting gesture of the fig"; from sykon, "fig" plus phantes, "someone who shows", from the infinitive phanein, "to show".

"Showing the fig" was a vulgar gesture made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig, itself symbolic of a woman's sex organ (sykon also meant "vulva").

The story goes that prominent politicians in ancient Greece held aloof from such inflammatory gestures, but privately urged their followers to taunt their opponents. The term sukophantes came to be used for an "informer", and eventually, via "someone who ingratiates himself/herself by informing", and for "a flatterer" or "a toady".

The sense of "mean, servile flatterer" is first recorded in English in 1575.

Sycophant has many synonyms

Since a sycophant is defined as "someone who attempts to win favor or advance him/herself by flattering people of influence"; such a servile self-seeker may also be referred to as: "a bootlicker, a flunky, a lacky, a fawner, an apple polisher, a backslapper, a cat's paw, a yes-man/yes-woman, a parasite", or "a toady".

An ancient explanation of the derivation of sycophant is that it stemmed from the Greek sukophantes, "fig shower" or "showing the fig".

It isn't clear just what significance a "fig shower" was, but its apparent meaning was "informer", someone who denounced to officials anyone not paying the tariff on figs, a heavily taxed item in some ancient past.

Since these informants were playing up to the government, they were called government toadies.

Although this has been documented, some etymology spoofers believe that all of this is simply a figment of someone's imagination.

Characteristic of a sycophant; sycophantical; such as, "servile parasites give sycophantic praise to every word."

1. Servilely courting favor; servile, slavish.
2. A reference to or descriptive of a sycophant.

Sycophantical.

Like a sycophant; obsequiously flattering.

Sycophancy.

1. To play the sycophant.
2. The action of being a sycophant.

Sycophancy.

1. In medicine, a skin disease marked by inflammation of the hair follicles, especially of the beard.
2. A kind of ulcer on the eyelids.

Said to be an "ulcer resembling a fig".