18 Truly Surprising Word Origins

17 Sycophant
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OK, this one is the weirdest of all, and of course it’s the ancient Greeks again, just being weird. Sycophant comes from συκο (suko), which means “Fig” and φάντης (phantes) which refers to people showing or revealing something. BEAR WITH ME I AM ALMOST FINISHED.

Anyway, apparently back in the deezy exporting figs used to be against the law, but people did it anyway. And the jackasses who told on them to the cops were called “fig revealers.” The rest is history.