Sycophant

The story of the word

In Athens a συκοφάντης was a professional accuser, a man who brought nuisance prosecutions for a cut of the fine, and there was no flattery in it. Why figs is genuinely unresolved: the old tale about informing on illegal fig exports has no ancient support, and the rival reading takes it as an obscene hand gesture. The English sense slid from informer to toady across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and never slid back.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English

First recorded

16th century