Word.ws English Dictionary

syncophant

syncophant is the misspelling of sycophant.

Meaning of sycophant

Noun

sycophant (plural sycophants)

  1. One who uses obsequious compliments to gain self-serving favour or advantage from another; a servile flatterer.
    • A sycophant will everything admire: / Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire1683, John Dryden, The Art of Poetry
  2. One who seeks to gain through the powerful and influential.
    Synonyms:
    parasite, flunky, lackey
  3. (obsolete) An informer; a talebearer.
    • [H]is mind had no eye to espy goodness; and therefore accusing sycophants, of all men, did best sort to his nature.a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London...

See all 5 meanings of sycophant

Forms of syncophant

pluralsyncophants

Questions about syncophant

What is syncophant the misspelling of?
Syncophant is the misspelling of sycophant.

Words near syncophant in the dictionary

  1. syncopative
  2. syncopator
  3. syncopators
  4. syncope
  5. syncopes
  6. syncophant
  7. syncophants
  8. syncopial
  9. syncopic
  10. syncopise
  11. syncopised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: syncophant (page history and authors); sycophant (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: “syncophant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/syncophant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.