chamcha

chamcha n. a sycophant, toady, or hanger-on. Etymological Note: From the Hindi and Urdu word for ‘spoon.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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Further reading

The Greek Roots of Sycophant and Showing the Fig

Andy from Kensington, Maryland, wonders about the word sycophant. Among the ancient Greeks, a blackmailer or someone who maliciously prosecuted others was a sykophantēs, a word that comes from the Greek sykon, meaning “fig,” and phainein, “to show.”...

Cheese Toasties (episode #1683)

If you mistype something, that’s a typo. But what do you call it when your voice-to-text program mistypes as you’re dictating? Is that a mico, as in microphone? Plus, the word sycophant has a long and surprising history that goes all the way back to...