kowtowing 1 of 2

adjective

Definition of kowtowingnext
as in subordinate

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

kowtowing

2 of 2

verb

present participle of kowtow
as in fussing
to use flattery or the doing of favors in order to win approval especially from a superior you can try kowtowing to the boss, but he'll see right through you

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Examples Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for kowtowing
  1. subordinate
  2. servile
  3. obsequious
  4. subservient
  5. slavish
  6. obedient
  7. submissive
  8. docile
Adjective
  • The president, in other words, is increasingly subordinate to the courts.
    Ian Millhiser, Vox, 7 Dec. 2018
  • This subordinate specification could allow regulators to implement auditing capabilities world-wide.
    James Felton Keith, Forbes, 9 Oct. 2024
Definition of subordinate
Adjective
  • His co-stars, like Will Ferrell’s savage Mugatu, Owen Wilson’s stoner hottie Hansel, and Nathan Lee Graham’s servile Todd — all so precise and well-defined in the original’s ravelike milieu — are doomed to retrace their old steps here.
    Sean Malin, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024
  • These officials could, in turn, redistribute some of their private goods among their own servile lieutenants, but the monarch retained ultimate power to grant or revoke their privileged status.
    Serhiy Kudelia, Foreign Affairs, 27 Feb. 2014
Definition of servile
Adjective
  • Sunny initially speaks in an obsequious ChatGPT-generic tone, but the robot gradually adopts Suzie’s speech patterns, softening Suzie’s initial skepticism.
    Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2024
  • What about her incessantly supportive mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) or her obsequious assistant (Miles Gutierrez-Riley)?
    Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 17 Oct. 2024
Definition of obsequious
Adjective
  • This is a consequence of complaints about the subservient and obliging female voices of Sky and, earlier, of Siri and Alexa.
    Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2024
  • And the subservient leadership training that the program went through over the summer — a three-day, approximately five-hour course that Jeremiah, who has been at the school for 21 years, insisted his coaches and players take — proved crucial amid this fall’s adversity.
    Kyle Newman, The Denver Post, 4 Oct. 2024
Definition of subservient
Adjective
  • Yet in Kim’s slavish dedication to the Jeju haenyeo’s testimony, many questions that arise in this setting are left unexplored.
    Geoffrey Bunting, Rolling Stone, 11 Oct. 2024
  • By the beginning of 1956, some American communists openly blamed the poor state of their party on Moscow’s ideological inflexibility—and their own leaders’ slavish obedience to Soviet officials.
    Jeremy Friedman, Foreign Affairs, 17 July 2024
Definition of slavish
Adjective
  • Feeding into Milioti’s volatile performance, her costumes chart a journey from obedient heiress to homicidal mob boss, culminating in her violent retribution against Oz in the show’s penultimate episode.
    Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, Vulture, 4 Nov. 2024
  • Even so, our exercises did not suggest that any authoritarian would command a uniformly obedient federal workforce.
    Barton Gellman, Washington Post, 30 July 2024
Definition of obedient
Adjective
  • Is being submissive in that moment the quickest way to bring that moment to an end?
    Jackie Strause, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Tops don’t have to be hard, masc, and tall — and bottoms don’t have to be submissive, small, or fem!
    María Saldana, Them, 1 Nov. 2024
Definition of submissive
Adjective
  • Humans still seem pretty empowered in this future, where robots are advanced enough to do everything — including developing complex emotions — but have remained a docile servant class.
    Sara Holdren, Vulture, 12 Nov. 2024
  • Continued authoritarianism, corruption, incompetence, unprofessionalism, and lack of reform outrage all Ukrainians, even those in his traditionally more docile base in the east and the south.
    Rajan Menon, Foreign Affairs, 11 Oct. 2011
Definition of docile
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Thesaurus Entries Near kowtowing

kowtowed

kowtowing

kowtows

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Cite this Entry

“Kowtowing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/kowtowing. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.

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