pickthank
pickthank noun: a sycophant; one who meddles, tattles, informs (often in order to curry favour).
Noun
pickthank (plural pickthanks)
- A sycophant; one who meddles, tattles, informs (often in order to curry favour).
- [T]he Dogge nuſling his noſe vnder the necke of the Deare, the Wolfe glad to let the Lambe lye vpon hym to kéepe him warme, the Lyon ſuffering the Aſſe to caſt hys legge ouer him: preferring one honeſt vnmannerly friende, before a number of croutching picke-thankes.1594, Tho[mas] Nashe, “The Vnfortunate Traueller”, in The Vnfortunate Traueller. Or, The Life of Iacke Wilton, London: […] T. Scarlet for C[uthbert] Burby, […], →OCLC
- This Dodger is mine uncle’s parasite,
The arrant’st varlet that e’er breathed on earth;
He sets more discord in a noble house
By one day’s broaching of his pickthank tales,
Than can be salved again in twenty years […]1599, Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, act I, scene 1
Forms of pickthank
| plural | pickthanks |
|---|---|
| alternative form | pick-thank |
Questions about pickthank
- What does pickthank mean?
- Pickthank means a sycophant; one who meddles, tattles, informs (often in order to curry favour).
- What part of speech is pickthank?
- Pickthank is a noun.
- What is the plural of pickthank?
- The plural of pickthank is pickthanks.
Words near pickthank in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pickthank (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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Cite this entry: “pickthank.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pickthank. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.