What's the difference between ingratiate and sycophant?

Ingratiate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To introduce or commend to the favor of another; to bring into favor; to insinuate; -- used reflexively, and followed by with before the person whose favor is sought.
  • (v. t.) To recommend; to render easy or agreeable; -- followed by to.
  • (v. i.) To gain favor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Alex Turner has already set about ingratiating himself with the 2013 festival by guesting with his erstwhile partner in the Last Shadow Puppets, Miles Kane, earlier this afternoon, but as he takes to the Pyramid Stage for the Monkeys' headline slot, piling straight into the bluesy electronic throbs of new single Do I Wanna Know in a sharp striped suit and teddy quiff and throwing the odd karate beckoning motion, there's a real sense of points to be proved.
  • (2) This may be due to their greater empathy in observing the needs of others or, alternatively, to an effort at ingratiation or an overreaction to social distress.
  • (3) Epstein’s purposes in ‘lending’ Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information.” The motion alleges that Maxwell was “a primary co-conspirator in his sexual abuse and sex trafficking scheme” and that she also participated in the abuse.
  • (4) This discussion highlights the subtlety involved in non-verbal ingratiation.
  • (5) The present research is a first attempt to explore the ingratiation ingredients of non-verbal attractiveness.
  • (6) She is also shown instructing an agent to attend campaign meetings and coaching him on how to ingratiate himself with activists.
  • (7) It is a tensile, highly dissonant combination of lines, etched in primary colours, with absolutely no harmonic or colouristic padding to ingratiate the listener.
  • (8) Governments have sought to ingratiate themselves with the motor manufacturers and oil companies to the detriment of public health.
  • (9) Smooth South African Trevor Noah saunters into shot, smiling, while the show’s trio of regular comedy sidekicks, Jessica Williams, Hasan Minhaj and Jordan Klepper, play around with a vuvuzela and some basic rugby terminology in a lame effort to ingratiate themselves with the new star.
  • (10) Savile used to boast of his royal connections, made sure to be photographed with Charles on numerous occasions and ingratiated himself once telling the Daily Mail the prince was "the nicest man you will ever meet".
  • (11) The Catholic father in Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall is just the most implacable enemy of nice-as-pie communists showing everyone a good time; the village imam in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep is an ingratiating, smirking creep; and the local rev in The Homesman (as played by John Lithgow) is definitely a weasel, rather too obviously grateful not to have to transport three traumatised frontierwomen back east.
  • (12) Ángel di María, with the opening goal and a performance combining high skill and hard running, certainly wasted little time ingratiating himself with his new audience.
  • (13) Children's testimony can be influenced by an overly authoritative or ingratiating attorney stance, an attorney's preconceived notions, age-inappropriate questions, and the child's limited attention span.
  • (14) He had always ingratiated himself into the cocktail parties of colleagues' relatives and acquaintances and in 1971, he married Emma de Bendern, daughter of Count John de Bendern; the marriage was convenient socially but lasted only three years.
  • (15) The main task of the present generation of politicians is not, I think to ingratiate themselves with the public through the decisions they take or their smiles on television.
  • (16) Epstein’s purposes in ‘lending’ Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information.” It adds: “For instance, one such powerful individual Epstein forced Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with was a member of the British royal family, Prince Andrew (aka Duke of York).” The Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz – who is also named in the court papers – said the claims against him were part of a pattern of “made-up stories” by the woman and her lawyers against prominent people.
  • (17) He met Hitler after he treated Heinrich Hoffman, the official Reich photographer, and sensing an opportunity quickly ingratiated himself with the Führer, who had long suffered from severe intestinal pains.
  • (18) Stalin had a fifth columnist in Ramón Mercader, who had ingratiated himself with one of Trotsky’s secretaries for years, becoming her boyfriend.
  • (19) The people who are favoured with special information are those who have ingratiated themselves with the government.
  • (20) Each sender expressed sincere agreement with the target on one of the issues and sincere disagreement on another (truthful messages), and also pretended to agree with the partner on one of the issues (an ingratiating lie) and pretended to disagree on another (a noningratiating lie).

Sycophant


Definition:

  • (n.) An informer; a talebearer.
  • (n.) A base parasite; a mean or servile flatterer; especially, a flatterer of princes and great men.
  • (v. t.) To inform against; hence, to calumniate.
  • (v. t.) To play the sycophant toward; to flatter obsequiously.
  • (v. i.) To play the sycophant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This leads to the paradoxical result that some of our most famous and successful journalists are also the profession's most credulous sycophants.
  • (2) Choe also accused the European Union and Japan, the resolution’s co-sponsors, of “subservience and sycophancy” to the United States, and he promised “unpredictable and serious consequences” if the resolution went forward.
  • (3) She protests to the satisfaction only of sycophants and fools that this is “just another title” – as in just another title to add to the 69 that have gone before, 21 of those majors, with the added value of being her fourth of the year, the fabled grand slam.
  • (4) Former Trump campaign manager and CNN’s resident Trump sycophant Corey Lewandowski said the paper “should be held accountable”, adding: “I hope he sues them into oblivion for doing this.” Yet they couldn’t be happier with the hacked emails from Clinton’s campaign manager that were leaked to WikiLeaks and published late last week.
  • (5) The education secretary, Michael Gove, was forced to disown his most senior aide after his former special adviser described David Cameron as bumbling, the No 10 chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, as a sycophant presiding over a shambolic court, and the direct of communications, Craig Oliver, as clueless.
  • (6) While the congress's 2,268 party delegates are technically responsible for workshopping their leaders' reports, many have opted to err on the side of sycophancy rather than genuine criticism.
  • (7) She gets nothing but sycophancy from her privy counsellors, so why not ask those paid to watch the entrails of the sacred geese, the economists?
  • (8) Maybe there is a secret to be examined, then, in Chinatown, where he works out to a backdrop of sycophancy and awe.
  • (9) Her instincts are suboptimal.” A stout defender of Clinton in public, in private Tanden injects some bracing honesty that suggests the candidate is not surrounded by sycophants.
  • (10) "His actions, surrounding himself with an old boys' club of like-minded sycophants, are dictatorial, in sharp contrast to those of David Cameron, who has shown he can listen, adapt and do what is right for the country, not just for personal gain."
  • (11) Gove was forced to disown his former senior aide for describing Cameron as bumbling, the No 10 chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, as a sycophant presiding over a shambolic court, and the direct of communications, Craig Oliver, as clueless.
  • (12) "The first time was in her house in Soweto and it was very disturbing: too many sycophants, too many who believe she's God."
  • (13) It is clear that voters in sufficient number realised that the real aim was to establish an Orwellian structure – a “ Mukhabarat state” consolidated around the AKP and run by an inner circle of sycophants.
  • (14) It's commonly thought that people in authority are surrounded by sycophants who never tell them how bad things are.
  • (15) The slightest scent of sycophancy always set Simon's nostrils twitching.
  • (16) It would take a generation to replace the sycophants who let Tony Blair and Gordon Brown rip their party’s values to shreds.
  • (17) Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but they seemed not to want to be familiar, in case it looked like sycophancy, but not to want to be unfamiliar, in case it looked like disapproval, and then, caught in the headlights of friendliness, unable to remember how friendly they had been last time.
  • (18) What was interesting was the way it made others act: we realised currying favour with the boss was the way to ensure we made enough to make the job worth our while, but also that overt sycophancy would have the opposite effect.
  • (19) You’re not supposed to be sycophants,” he told them.
  • (20) I guess if you are accustomed to being surrounded by the sycophancy of power that can be unsettling.