| 词汇 | sycophant |
| 词源 | sycophant. The old story, incapable of proof but widely ac- cepted, is that this word for an apple-polisher originated in ancient Greece from the Greek sukophantes (sukon, “fig,” and phainen, “to show”), which meant an informer on those who exported figs. At one time it was supposedly against the law to export figs from Athens, and sukophantes, or sycophants, often turned in violators of the unpopular law for their own personal gain, these toadies being widely despised. |
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