How to Use sycophancy in a Sentence

sycophancy

noun

• Your new book’s big theme is sycophancy in our politics.
  — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 13 July 2022
• Ready Player One takes this geek sycophancy to an entirely new level.
  — Ryan Smith, Chicago Reader, 8 Jan. 2018
• While some of the news hours have a rightward bent, the anchors generally don't display the pro-Trump sycophancy that's a signature feature of Fox's opinion programs.
  — Brian Stelter, CNN, 28 Aug. 2019
• Yet the past week has seen an explosion of sycophancy toward China’s leader, after his mammoth three-and-a-half-hour speech kicked off proceedings last Wednesday.
  — Simon Denyer, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2017
• As if there wasn’t already enough at stake in the 2020 election, the dream of a professionalized civil service without cronyism or sycophancy now also appears to be on the table.
  — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 22 Oct. 2020
• At times this admiring but uninspired making-of movie feels like the cinematic equivalent of the Karl/Marlene character: fawning to the point of sycophancy.
  — Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2022
• The upstart Carlin was sidling uncomfortably close to charging Wengrow with sycophancy or even careerism.
  — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 11 July 2022
• As De Stefano shows, the disorienting effects of fame fostered in her a dependence on sycophancy, but also a paranoid distrust even of her closest acolytes.
  — Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2022
• This is the recommendation of sycophancy based on hysteria.
  — Michael Gerson, Alaska Dispatch News, 20 June 2017
• Impatient with the annoying sides of the great fame that had settled upon him, adult sycophancy, loss of privacy, etc., and yet immeasurably patient and kind to starstruck kids so excited to see their hero.
  — Elizabeth Leonard, Peoplemag, 14 June 2023
• The chairman’s power endures amid a culture of sycophancy and clannish distrust of anyone outside his inner circle of party bosses.
  — Frank Scaturro, National Review, 13 July 2017
• Still, sycophancy is an effective path to favor with any President, especially this one.
  — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 12 July 2019
• But in this instance, the president conveyed his threat through government officials, using the power of his office — and public servants — to extort a display of sycophancy from two cable news hosts.
  — Eric Levitz, Daily Intelligencer, 30 June 2017
• But in this instance, the president conveyed his threat through government officials, using the power of his office — and public servants — to extort a display of sycophancy from two cable-news hosts.
  — Eric Levitz, The Cut, 30 June 2017
• Worse, the president’s need for flattery and his base’s intense defensiveness combine to make public sycophancy the only reliable proof of loyalty.
  — Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 10 Jan. 2018
• Instead, the election devolved into mudslinging and sycophancy.
  — Geeta Anand, New York Times, 23 Mar. 2016
• As for Russia, another reset was impossible after Putin’s meddling in the 2016 Presidential election and four years of Trump’s open sycophancy.
  — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023
• In truth, the press’s current sycophancy rises from a hinterland of intimidation, trimming and currying favour dating back to Mr Modi’s rise to national power in 2014.
  — The Economist, 22 Aug. 2019
• Where Spicer’s professions of praise for the president always seemed mousy, pleading, perhaps a little browbeaten, Scaramucci brought the sincere sycophancy that comes from truly adoring Donald Trump.
  — David A. Graham, The Atlantic, 21 July 2017
• The questions are often barely veiled insults, delivered in a mirthless deadpan that’s somewhere between stupidity and sociopathy — the exact opposite of the breezy sycophancy that passes for most late-night banter.
  — Scott Tobias, Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2019
• Some of Trump’s media boosters — most notably Sean Hannity — remain totally committed to sycophancy.
  — Callum Borchers, Washington Post, 18 July 2017
• According to the playwright, King George was driven mad by the spiritually enervating effects of the sycophancy of his toadying subordinates.
  — Terry Teachout, WSJ, 17 Aug. 2017
• His characterization has been filtered though Mike Leigh rigor rather than Masterpiece Theatre sycophancy.
  — Armond White, National Review, 19 Jan. 2018
• Beyond the sycophancy inevitable from the president of a weak country that needs protection against a regional superpower that is occupying part of its territory, the conversation offers some insights into Mr Zelensky’s challenge.
  — The Economist, 26 Sep. 2019
• Online conversation has been curtailed, replaced with orchestrated sycophancy.
  — Kenneth Roth, The New York Review of Books, 14 Jan. 2020

Last Updated: 1 Dec 2024