How to Use sycophant in a Sentence

sycophant

noun
Definition of sycophantnext
Synonyms for sycophantnext
  • But the unions and their school board sycophants won’t allow it.
    — Larry Sand, Orange County Register, 26 Mar. 2017
  • Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are some of the cleverest sycophants around.
    — Sahil Handa, National Review, 11 July 2019
  • Meanwhile, at the party, Logan gets fed up with the parade of sycophants.
    — Brandon Taylor, The New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2023
  • At the same time, the emperor’s fondness for Li Po made him a target of jealousy for snobs and sycophants at court.
    — Yunte Huang, WSJ, 11 Jan. 2019
  • But for those who became sycophants to a racist golfer for personal gain, there can be no going back.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 22 July 2019
  • You're not supposed to be sycophants, you're supposed to be skeptics, you're supposed to ask me tough questions.
    — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 5 Oct. 2017
  • Natalie tells Love that Sherry runs this town, so the only way to deal with her is to earn her respect or be a sycophant.
    — Jessica Goldstein, Vulture, 15 Oct. 2021
  • These sycophants, along with the anti-Maduro chavistas, are now worried.
    — Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 10 Feb. 2019
  • The golf establishment tends to remember Roberts as a sour figure, a charmless tyrant, and a canny sycophant—the bad cop to the faultless Bobby Jones.
    — Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 14 June 2019
  • This attitude may stem from years spent arguing on message boards filled with sycophants, haters, and few in between.
    — Adam Wilson, Harper's magazine, 16 Sep. 2019
  • Mostly, Getty surrounds himself with hangers-on and sycophants, prodding what amounts to his royal court to debate who loves him the most.
    — Brian Lowry, CNN, 23 Mar. 2018
  • Musk’s supporters lash out The Cult of Musk is filled with all kinds of people: investors, accomplices, fanboys, sycophants, and suckers.
    — Scott Nover, Quartz, 21 Apr. 2023
  • And only his in-studio audience of sycophants is laughing.
    — Armond White, National Review, 7 June 2024
  • The story tabbed his assistants, all the young coaches other than McVay, as sycophants, yes men, there to appease the Shanahans, having not earned their coaching stripes.
    — Greg Bishop, SI.com, 23 Aug. 2019
  • It’s also why sycophants entrenched in and defending the status quo are terrified.
    — Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 16 Jan. 2018
  • Mussolini and Hitler slipped their countries into fascism and Nazism with the consent and willingness of their many sycophants and supporters.
    — Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 20 Aug. 2019
  • Which sycophants are willing to trek to a Manhattan courtroom to score some points with their dear leader is worth keeping an eye on — like Cohen once was, these are the people who might do anything for him.
    — Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2024
  • Often, the person receiving the validation sees the sycophant’s words and actions as harmless.
    — Stephanie Dillon, Rolling Stone, 22 Feb. 2023
  • So the president called on a mob of angry GOP Congressional sycophants to disrupt the impeachment inquiry on his behalf.
    — J.d. Crowe | [email protected], al, 25 Oct. 2019
  • The series follows Elena’s increasingly unhinged behavior as the sycophants around her fall all over themselves to cater to her every whim.
    — The Arizona Republic, 27 Feb. 2024
  • But if the old dynamics don't change, the NRA with its money, its grass roots and its sycophants in government who stop any real solutions from even being discussed, will continue to have their way.
    — Joseph Gerth, The Courier-Journal, 4 Oct. 2017
  • Robots are menial servants and sycophants rather than colleagues, and human slavery persists.
    — Manu Saadia, The New Yorker, 13 Jan. 2017
  • The Warriors were up, three games to one, and planning celebratory excursions to Napa and noodling with the latest toys coughed up by Silicon Valley sycophants.
    — The New York Times, New York Times, 31 May 2017
  • Hollywood is turning from a batch of soulless, bloodsucking sycophants into a pack of mindless, shambling corpses looking to destroy your brain.
    — Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 20 July 2011
  • Casey Jane Ellison has made a comedy-slash-art career out of walking the very fine line between her abiding love for and hilarious mockery of the art world—or at least of its sycophants, poseurs, and profiteers.
    — Vogue, 6 Feb. 2018
  • Senator Lee is, and has been a loyal sycophant when convenient for his own political future.
    — Emily Anderson Stern, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2 Nov. 2022
  • Pence had been among the most loyal soldiers of Trump’s presidency, defending him against multiple ethics charges and praising him so effusively that many ridiculed him as a sycophant.
    — Noah Biermanstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 16 June 2022
  • All About Eve Davis cemented her status as one of the all-time greats in this 1950 drama, playing a venerable theater star desperate to shake off an ambitious sycophant.
    — vanityfair.com, 3 Mar. 2017
  • None of the three is motivated by partisanship, and only Hannity is truly a sycophant.
    — David L. Bahnsen, National Review, 14 Sep. 2017
  • A fake Twitter account is only one of the early signs of impending celebrity, along with well-meaning admirers, autograph-seekers, groupies and sycophants.
    — David Waldstein, New York Times, 17 Mar. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sycophant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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