Sycophantic means fawning on those who can do you good. A sycophantic review.
It is always an insult, and it accuses the flatterer of calculation rather than warmth. Sycophantic praise is easy to spot from outside and almost impossible from inside.
1adjectivesycophanticFawning on those who can do you good.
“The introduction was sycophantic beyond bearing.”
sycophantic is a quality.
Greek sykophantes, literally a fig-shower, whose original sense is lost; in Athens it meant an informer.
Ancient Greek
σῡκοφᾰντῐκός
English, today
sycophantic
From Ancient Greek σῡκοφᾰντῐκός. by surface analysis, sycophant + -ic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA