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 Translation for 'obsequious' from English to French
ADJ   obsequious | more obsequious | most obsequious
SYNO bootlicking | fawning | obsequious | ...
servile {adj}obsequious
obséquieux {adj}obsequious
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Translation for 'obsequious' from English to French

obsequious
servile {adj}

obséquieux {adj}
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Usage Examples English
  • Kennan wrote that Custine describes Russia as a horrible domain of obsequious flattery of the Tsar and spying.
  • Though she does not share his obsequious quest for British citizenship, she generally encourages him to achieve his goals.
  • He appeared in two films with Coward: "The Astonished Heart" (1950) and "The Italian Job" (1968), in which Coward played a criminal mastermind with Payn as his obsequious assistant.
  • A versatile talent, he specialises in sinister or obsequious roles and has featured regularly in many British popular television series for both adults and children.
  • A social climber is a derogatory term that denotes someone who seeks social prominence through aggressive, fawning, or obsequious behavior.

  • In "History in Our Time", David Cannadine criticized the book as "courtly and obsequious", the history of "an icon rather than of an individual," and a "sanitised sarcophagus".
  • The phrase "yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir" has been used to describe any obsequious or craven subordinate. It is attested from 1910, and originally was common in the British Royal Navy.
  • Commenting on the withdrawal of Patrick Klugman from proceedings brought against Edgar Morin, the lawyer and essayist Gilles-William Goldnadel described Klugman as an "obsequious courtier".
  • He declined, feeling that "such an appointment would be a poisoned chalice," as the Laureateship had fallen into disrepute due to the decline in quality of work suffered by previous title holders, "as a succession of poetasters had churned out conventional and obsequious odes on royal occasions."
  • Apart from the vice of obsequiousness, there is also flattery, which is the third vice whereby someone acts in an obsequious way to try to gain some advantage to themselves.

  • First Nations activists have sometimes accused it of being obsequious to the government as a result, and not sufficiently representative of the larger First Nations community.
  • She tries to woo Count Frederick's obsequious assistant Pendant – much to his horror – but he persuades her instead that Sir Abraham will be stupid enough to fall for her and accept the baby as his.
  • Due to Junior's plotting of an assassination, Tony also gets embroiled in a plot against childhood friend Artie Bucco, a charming but obsequious restaurateur.
  • He was not especially liked by his contemporaries: he was considered at once obsequious and a martinet in his official role and a bigot.
  • For reasons that are not entirely clear a "Scherwenzel" was originally a pejorative name for an obsequious servant or lackey.

  • Francis Bacon in his disgrace asked favours in an obsequious letter which he addressed to the Earl in the month of his marriage.
  • He squirmed; he doubled together, crumpled up…” Porphyry could not stop his habit of being obsequious.
  • A Yes man is a sycophant; an obsequious assistant or enabler.
  • Critics such as Malone, Collier, Dowden and Larsen glossed "obsequious" as "funereal" [...]; others have preferred the simpler "dutiful".
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© dict.cc French-English dictionary 2024
Contains translations by TU Chemnitz and Mr Honey's Business Dictionary (German-English only).
Links to this dictionary or to individual translations are very welcome!