OBSEQUIOUS

obsequious

(adjective) attentive in an ingratiating or servile manner; “obsequious shop assistants”

bootlicking, fawning, obsequious, sycophantic, toadyish

(adjective) attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology

Adjective

obsequious (comparative more obsequious, superlative most obsequious)

(archaic) Obedient; compliant with someone else's orders or wishes.

Excessively eager and attentive to please or to obey instructions; fawning, subservient, servile.

(obsolete) Of or pertaining to obsequies, funereal.

• Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2

• Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Scene 2

Synonyms

• (obedient): See also obedient

• (fawning or subservient): fawning, ingratiating, servile, slavish, sycophantic, truckling, smarmy asskissing ; see also sycophantic

Source: Wiktionary

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Ob*se"qui*ous, a. Etym: [L.obsequiosus, fr. obsequium compliance, fr. obsequi, fr. obsequi: cf. F. obséquieux, See Obsequent, and cf. Obsequy.]

1. Promptly obedient, or submissive, to the will of another; compliant; yielding to the desires of another; devoted. [Obs.] His servants weeping, Obsequious to his orders, bear him hither. Addison.

2. Servilely or meanly attentive; compliant to excess; cringing; fawning; as, obsequious flatterer, parasite. There lies ever in "obsequious" at the present the sense of an observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another. Trench.

3. Etym: [See Obsequy.]

Definition: Of or pertaining to obsequies; funereal. [R.] "To do obsequious sorrow." Shak.

Syn.

– Compliant; obedient; servile. See Yielding.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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