FLATTERER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does flatterer mean? 

• FLATTERER (noun)
  The noun FLATTERER has 1 sense:

1. a person who uses flattery

  Familiarity information: FLATTERER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FLATTERER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who uses flattery

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

adulator; flatterer

Hypernyms ("flatterer" is a kind of...):

follower (a person who accepts the leadership of another)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flatterer"):

ass-kisser; crawler; lackey; sycophant; toady (a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage)

Derivation:

flatter (praise somewhat dishonestly)

 Context examples 

She is a flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to death or banishment by the practising of great ministers upon the corruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit: how great a share in the motions and events of courts, councils, and senates might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Can you trust me with such flatterers?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I am no flatterer.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)