sycophant
C2CEFR level
60/100Rarity: rare
FormalRegister
General noun
A person who flatters someone powerful in order to gain advantage.
Surrounded by sycophants, the chairman had not heard an honest opinion in years.
Business noun
A person who flatters those in power to gain advantage.
The chief surrounded himself with sycophants and lost all honest feedback.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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