The Greek Roots of Sycophant and Showing the Fig

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey Grant, this is Andy Rasik calling from Kensington, Maryland.

Oh hi Andy, welcome to the program.

What’s up?

For maybe reasons that don’t bear going into right now, the other day I looked up the word sycophant and I had a a hunch that maybe it had a Greek origin and and I was correct on that, but where I got confused and and wanted to reach out to you all is I believe the original meeting, meaning excuse me, was either showing someone the sign of a fig, which apparently was a rude hand gesture, or maybe telling on someone who was importing figs but not paying a fig tax.

And I I cannot for the life of me figure out how something like that turned into the modern usage, which you know, I I think you m might be able to encapsulate that as suck up or water flatteries or paper.

Yeah.

Let’s let’s spell some words here.

Since we’re on radio and sometimes it’s hard to hear.

So sycophant, s y c O P H A N T.

And then you mentioned figs as in the fruit, F-I-G.

Mm-

Yeah, much to say about the word sycophant because in ancient Greece, the sycophants were people who prosecuted other people without justification.

Either they were trying to convict somebody who was innocent of something or blackmail somebody into paying them to drop the case.

So the Greeks had this word sucophantes, which referred to this kind of sleazebag.

And then by the 16th century, mid-16th century in English, its derivative, sycophant, had found its way into our language, meaning a malicious accuser or slanderer from this ancient Greek meaning.

But it soon developed this other negative meaning, and I think the Oxford English Dictionary defines it best.

A mean, servile, cringing, or abject flatterer, a parasite, toady, lickspittle.

That must be one of the entries that has not been revised since the 1800s, but let’s get back to that Greek word sucophantes.

It breaks down into two words, and as you suggested, the succon there means fig as in the fruit, and the fantas means one who shows it has to do with showing so the Greek psychophantes literally meant someone who shows the fig and that’s where it gets kind of murky because there have been lots of stories proposed, as you suggested, involving the literal fruit of the fig tree.

That that the sycophants in ancient Greek were were people who snitched about the illegal exportation of figs or something having to do with taxes, but more likely the Greek word sucon, meaning fig could also mean female genitalia.

And for centuries there’s been this obscene gesture that translates in a lot of different languages as the fig, and that’s sticking your thumb between your next two fingers and then waving it at somebody.

And for centuries and across cultures, showing the fig like that, making that little gesture, is you know, kind of the equivalent of flipping somebody off.

In fact, there’s a great passage in Dante’s Inferno where this thief who’s really angry at being in hell lifts both his hands, making the figs with both his thumbs, and yells at God and then, he’s promptly strangled by snakes.

So it’s plausible that an ancient Greece showing the fig somehow became linked with these bad actors.

Andy, just to put a cap on exactly how unknown this is, even Plutarch, who was born in the year fifty, did had some questions about the origin of this word or this idea of of showing figs and what it could possibly too.

So it has been unknown for a very long time.

But it’s a bad thing.

And I want to leave you, Andy, with one more word.

So any kind of offensive gesture like showing the fig or the middle finger is apotropaic.

A P O T R O P A I C.

And so that’s what we call any kind of physical euphemism or or gesture that’s meant to be obscene.

Yeah, it comes from a Greek for turning away.

So how about that?

Well I I didn’t know what to expect, but I know that I didn’t expect that.

That is an interesting lesson.

Thanks so much, Andy.

We really appreciate your time.

Yeah, thanks, Grant.

Thanks so much, Martha.

Take care of y’all.

Okay.

Take care, Andy.

Yep.

Bye.

I forgot to mention that that second part, the P H A-N-T in Sycaphant, has a really interesting history.

It goes back to the Greek word that means show, and that, if you know that, it unlocks a whole lot of different words in English like diaphanous, which means showing through, and epiphany, which means, you know, sort of sort of manifesting upon, and also the word Tiffany, which goes back to words that mean God shining through.

Tiffany the name or Tiffany the glassmaker?

No.

Well it’s interesting that you know, Tiffany lamp has a light shining through.

But but no, it goes back to an earlier word that means God shining through.

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