Word.ws English Dictionary

ingratiating

ingratiating adjective: which ingratiates; which attempts to bring oneself into the favour of another, often with flattery or insincerity; smarmy; unctuous; oily. Also the present participle and gerund of ingratiate.

Adjective

ingratiating (comparative more ingratiating, superlative most ingratiating)

  1. Which ingratiates; which attempts to bring oneself into the favour of another, often with flattery or insincerity; smarmy; unctuous; oily.
    • an ingratiating smile.
    • Mr. Alfred O'Shea, a tenorizing youth from Australia, sang several times at Queen's Hall, and may congratulate himself on being one of the 'catches' of the season. He sang airs from Italian and French operas, and also a number of Irish ditties—naturally, with a name like that and such an...1922 August 1, “London Concerts”, in The Musical Times
    Synonyms:
    honeyed, unctuous

Also used as

ingratiating is also the present participle and gerund of ingratiate.

Synonyms of ingratiating

Forms of ingratiating

comparativemore ingratiating
superlativemost ingratiating

Words formed from ingratiating

Questions about ingratiating

What does ingratiating mean?
Ingratiating means which ingratiates; which attempts to bring oneself into the favour of another, often with flattery or insincerity; smarmy; unctuous; oily.
What part of speech is ingratiating?
Ingratiating is an adjective.

Words near ingratiating in the dictionary

  1. ingrately
  2. ingrates
  3. ingratiate
  4. ingratiated
  5. ingratiates
  6. ingratiating
  7. ingratiatingly
  8. ingratiation
  9. ingratiations
  10. ingratiative
  11. ingratiator

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ingratiating (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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