Meaning of pickthank | Babel Free

Definitions

A sycophant; one who meddles, tattles, informs (often in order to curry favour).

attributive, sometimes

Equivalents

Examples

“[T]he Dogge nuſling his noſe vnder the necke of the Deare, the Wolfe glad to let⟳ the Lambe lye vpon hym to kéepe him warme, the Lyon ſuffering the Aſſe to caſt hys legge ouer him: preferring one honeſt vnmannerly friende, before a number⟳ of croutching picke-thankes.”

“This Dodger is mine uncle’s parasite, The arrant’st varlet that e’er breathed on earth; He sets more discord in a noble house By one day’s broaching of his pickthank tales, Than can be salved again in twenty years […]”

“Yet such extenuation let⟳ me beg⟳, / As, in reproof of many tales devised, / which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear⟳, / By smiling pick-thanks and base⟳ news-mongers, / I may, for some things true, wherein my youth / Hath faulty wander’d and irregular, / Find⟳ pardon on my true submission.”

“1628, John Earle, Micro-cosmographie, or, A Piece of the World Discovered; in Essayes and Characters, Characters, 40. A rash man, He is a man still swayed with the first reports, and no man more in the power of a pickthank then he.”

“1755, Eliza Haywood (under the pseudonym Exploralibus), The Invisible Spy, London: T. Garner, Volume 1, Chapter 7, p. 256, Why then, sir, your friend is no better than a pickthank for bringing you such idle stories; and I am not afraid to tell⟳ him so to his face⟳.”

“1868, F. H. Doyle, Lectures Delivered before the University of Oxford, London: Macmillan, Lecture⟳ 2, pp. 49-50, Some pickthank contrived to let⟳ the little great man know⟳ what had taken place⟳, and he, so she informed me, was ungenerous enough to wreak a mean⟳ revenge.”

“Nevertheless, behind these pick-thank airs Mr. Bandparts was a mellowed man.”

CEFR level