Show Me Your Figs, Sycophant!

From the Greek fig + to show (sorry, blogger does not allow the cutting and pasting of the actual greek) (Cf. F. sycophante (16th c.), †sichophant, It., Sp. sicofanta, Pg. sycophanta.)
The origin of the Gr. word, lit. = ‘fig-shower’, has not been satisfactorily accounted for. The explanation, long current, that it orig. meant an informer against the unlawful exportation of figs cannot be substantiated. It is possible that the term referred orig. to the gesture of ‘making a fig’ or had an obscene implication.
['sIk-ah-fant] ( Again, apologies as blogger does also not understand the IPA)
1. Gr. Hist. One of a class of informers in ancient Athens: see quots. and etymology above.
2. transf. and fig. An informer, tale-bearer, malicious accuser; a calumniator, traducer, slanderer. Obs.
3. A mean, servile, cringing, or abject flatterer; a parasite, toady, lickspittle.

And so, our challenge continues, to use all definitions in a phrase or scene:
Socrates: You narked on me, you insolent sycophant(definition 1)!

Plato: How dare you call me sycophant (definition 2) when I was forced to tell them the truth about you, lest they make me drink hemlock! I do not want my legacy repeated ad naseum in an English workbook! Such an honor should be reserved only for you!

Socrates: You fool sycophant (definition 3). I can see your false humility as plain as the sands in the hour glass. A curse fall upon the name Plato! Henceforth, let every woman you love only want to be friends! How men will beg for generations for relationships to be not Platonic!


This word I came across while reading a book on how to insult and abuse people in Classical Latin. I think originally my husband added it to our library with the idea that I could use it to defend myself at dinner -- he, my father-in-law and our daughter's godfather all speak Latin. I can get through a Mass and a few phrases from Virgil and Ovid, and then I have to resort to t-shirt slogans. (Veni, Vidi, Veggie : I came, I saw, I had a salad.) In fact, someday I think their plan is to have my daughter also speak Latin -- one of her first books from them was Cattus Petasatus, or the Cat in the Hat in Latin.

And to fulfill part of my assignment on finding poems that play with sound, who better than Doctore Seuss:

Imber totum diem fluit
Urceatim semper pluit
Taedet intus nos manere:
Numquam potest sol splendere,
Desidesque sic sedemus,
Nec ridemus, nec gaudemus.
Fore finem quiescendi
Mihi spes est et sedendi.

The opening stanzas of Cattus Petasatus.
Note that they are, like classical medieval Latin works, in rhyming couplets!