Search the Dictionary

commendation or attentions; to blandish; to cajole; to wheedle. When I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered. Shak. A man that flattereth his neighbor, spreadeth a net for his feet. Prov. xxix. 5. Others he flattered by asking their advice. Prescott.

One who flatters. The most abject flaterers degenerate into the greatest tyrants. Addison.

That flatters (in the various senses of the verb); as, a flattering speech. Lay not that flattering unction to your soul. Shak. A flattering painter, who made it his care, To draw men as they ought be, not as they are. Goldsmith.

With flattery.

The act or practice of flattering; the act of pleasing by artiful commendation or compliments; adulation; false, insincere, or excessive praise. Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. Rambler. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver. Burke.

To flatter excessively.

To exceed in flattering.

; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts. "Base and abject flatterers." Addison. "An abject liar." Macaulay. And banish hence these abject, lowly dreams. Shak.

To flatter in a servile way. Byron.

Servile flattery; praise in excess, or beyond what is merited. Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation Shak.

A servile or hypocritical flatterer. Carlyle.

Containing excessive praise or compliment; servilely praising; flattering; as, an adulatory address. A mere rant of adulatory freedom. Burke.

A woman who flatters with servility.

ure or bait, that is, by the offer of some good, real or apparent; to invite by something flattering or acceptable; to entice; to attract. With promised joys allured them on. Falconer. The golden sun in splendor likest Heaven Allured his eye. Milton.

Insincere, flattering, or obsequious assent; hypocritical or pretended concurrence. Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. Ld. Chesterfield.

An obsequious; a flatterer. [R.]

Flattering; obsequious. [Obs.] -- As*sent"a*to*ri*ly, adv. [Obs.]

oral influence; -- with to; as, attached to a friend; attaching others to us by wealth or flattery. Incapable of attaching a sensible man. Miss Austen. God . . . by various ties attaches man to man. Cowper.

ance or opposition of mind; disliking; disinclined; unwilling; reluctant. Averse alike to flatter, or offend. Pope. Men who were averse to the life of camps. Macaulay. Pass by securely as men averse from war. Micah ii. 8.

ins, that is, those sins which idleness and beggary usually betray men to; such as lying, flattery, stealing, and dissimulation. Jer. Taylor.