Latin sycophanta informer, swindler, sycophant, from Greek sykophantēs informer, from sykon fig + phainein to show. The origin and development of the meaning is not clear; the most popular theory, put forward by Plutarch, was that the word referred to a person who informed on those who illegally exported figs or who stole the fruit of sacred fig trees; others claimed that a sycophant was an official connected with sacred fig trees who denounced those who were not worthy to belong to the cult, or one who metaphorically ‘made a fig’ (an obscene gesture) at the person they accused. None of these theories is now thought to be true. In English the word originally meant ‘an informer’, later ‘a bearer of false or malicious tales’; the sense ‘flatterer’ may be due to the idea of currying favour by slandering others or flattering the listener. The sense ‘swindler, impostor’, from Latin, was also used in English from the late 16th to the early 18th cents