Sycophant - Etymology

Etymology

The origin of the Greek word συκοφάντης (sykophántēs) is a matter of debate, but disparages the unjustified accuser who has in some way perverted the legal system. The original etymology of the word (sukon / sykos / συκος fig, and phainein / fanēs / φανης to show) “revealer of figs” – has been the subject of extensive scholarly speculation and conjecture. Plutarch appears to be the first to have suggested that the source of the term was in laws forbidding the exportation of figs, and that those who leveled the accusation against another of illegally exporting figs were therefore called sycophants. Athenaeus provided a similar explanation.Blackstone's Commentaries repeats this story, but adds an additional take – that there were laws making it a capital offense to break into a garden and steal figs, and that the law was so odious that informers were given the name sycophants. A different explanation of the origin of the term by Shadwell was that the sycophant refers to the manner in which figs are harvested, by shaking the tree and revealing the fruit hidden among the leaves. The sycophant, by making false accusations, makes the accused yield up their fruit. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition listed these and other explanations, including that the making of false accusations was an insult to the accused in the nature of "showing the fig", an "obscene gesture of phallic significance" or, alternatively that the false charges were often so insubstantial as to not to amount to the worth of a fig. Generally, scholars have dismissed these explanations as inventions, long after the original meaning had been lost. Allen suggests that the term was "slightly obscene", connoting a kind of perversion, and may have had a web of meanings derived from the symbolism of figs in ancient Greek culture, ranging from the improper display of one’s “figs” by being overly aggressive in pursuing a prosecution, the unseemly revealing of the private matters of those accused of wrongdoing, to the inappropriate timing of harvesting figs when they are unripe.