sycophancy
noun
sycophancy is spelled S-Y-C-O-P-H-A-N-C-Y: 10 letters. It appears about once in every 14 million words in written English, the 114,361st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, sycophancy means “The fawning behavior of a sycophant; servile flattery; fawningness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of sycophancy is sycophancies.
How many letters and syllables are in sycophancy?
| Letters | 10: S-Y-C-O-P-H-A-N-C-Y |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 14 million words; the 114,361st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is sycophancy?
Sycophancy appears about once in every 14 million words in written English, the 114,361st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Forms of sycophancy
- sycophancies plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does sycophancy mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The fawning behavior of a sycophant; servile flattery; fawningness.
- 2
The tendency of a language model to produce answers that flatter or agree with a user’s beliefs or biases rather than giving accurate or truthful information, or to give strategically false answers when it infers that it is being evaluated in terms of alignment.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Sycophancy in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fawning behavior of a sycophant; servile flattery:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | flagornerie, flatterie, lèche-culterie, cirage de pompes |
| German | Speichelleckerei |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does sycophancy come from?
From Latin sȳcophantia, from Ancient Greek σῡκοφᾰντῐ́ᾱ (sūkophăntĭ́ā), equivalent to sycophant + -cy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).