quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- figgy (adj.)



[figgy 词源字典] - 1540s "sweet" (as figs are), from fig (n.1) + -y (2). From 1846 (in a book of Cornish words) as "full of figs or raisins."[figgy etymology, figgy origin, 英语词源]
- sycophant (n.)




- 1530s (in Latin form sycophanta), "informer, talebearer, slanderer," from Middle French sycophante and directly from Latin sycophanta, from Greek sykophantes "false accuser, slanderer," literally "one who shows the fig," from sykon "fig" (see fig) + phainein "to show" (see phantasm). "Showing the fig" was a vulgar gesture made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig, itself symbolic of a vagina (sykon also meant "vulva"). The modern accepted explanation is that prominent politicians in ancient Greece held aloof from such inflammatory gestures, but privately urged their followers to taunt their opponents. The sense of "mean, servile flatterer" is first recorded in English 1570s.
The explanation, long current, that it orig. meant an informer against the unlawful exportation of figs cannot be substantiated. [OED]