Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Vocabulary Word of the Day

Since I'm not quite so prolific a writer as to have something to post daily, I do want to reward those who visit the blog regularly. I find that often in my reading I come across a word that I either don't know the meaning of or have only a vague idea of its meaning. I will post the meaning of these words, and others I may have questions about to strengthen both my writing and yours.

Lets begin, shall we?

Todays word is:
SYCOPHANT - noun - A servile self-seeker who seeks favor by flattering influential people

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to admit something terrible. In college, I was a Latin major, and as part of the curriculum, I took 1 year of ancient Greek. Here's a little fun fact. That word comes from two root words, "fig" and "to show." A sycophant was a "fig shower." I forget the specific historical context, but there was a time neighbors would rat each other out over taxes or something relating to fig trees. A "fig shower" was the nasty person who turned you in.

Jaye Wells said...

Hmmm, an anonymous hoodie? Intriguing. Thanks for the link.

As to Jason's lesson in Latin: are you sure it isn't related to the classical placement of fig leaves? I mean, in that case "fig show-er" takes on a whole new meaning.

Hoodie said...

That is a fun fact.

And I'm still waiting for the horrible admission. Surely it's not that you were a Latin major. That rocks.

Hoodie said...

Thanks for stopping by Jaye!
Ha, that is a whole new meaning.