The word sycophant comes from the ancient Greek sykophantēs, conventionally parsed as sykon (fig) + phainein (to show). Accordingly, the sykophantēs is literally a “fig-shower.” There were various folk explanations in antiquity: the fig showerer was someone who tattled on those illegally exporting Attican figs; or he was a denouncer of thieves of sacred fig trees or of makers of the obscene “fig gestures” like the blasphemer Vanni Fucci who, in canto 25 of Dante’s…
 
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