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flatterers

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Individuals who lavish excessive, often insincere praise on others to curry favor; a recurrent target of satire and moral verse, personifying hypocrisy, vanity, and the hollow commerce of courtly or political flattery.

Detailed Definition
A flatterer is someone who gives excessive praise, usually for selfish reasons. The poem uses the word to show a life that cannot be manipulated by praise or social pressure.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Whose state can neither flatterers feed” identifies those who praise for advantage; “Flatterers gild the tyrant’s every error”; “The prince mistrusts flatterers at his feast”; “Her poem rejects the flatterer’s easy praise”
Additional Notes
The noun “flatterers” may need explanation because it refers to insincere praise-givers, a social term that is less immediate than everyday vocabulary.; Found in the poem, The Character of a Happy Life by Sir Henry Wotton
Also Known As
sycophants ingratiators
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