The word for today is…
sycophant (noun):
a servile self-seeking flatterer
Source : Merriam -Webster
Etymology : In ancient Greece, sykophantes meant “slanderer.” It derives from two other Greek words, sykon (meaning “fig”) and phainein (meaning “to show or reveal”). How did fig revealers become slanderers? One theory has to do with the taxes Greek farmers were required to pay on the figs they brought to market. Apparently, the farmers would sometimes try to avoid making the payments, but squealers—fig revealers—would dob them in, and they would be forced to pay. Another possible source is a sense of the word fig meaning “a gesture or sign of contempt” (as thrusting a thumb between two fingers). In any case, Latin retained the “slanderer” sense when it borrowed a version of sykophantes, but by the time English speakers in the 16th century borrowed it as sycophant, the squealers had become flatterers.
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