adulate

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The Word of the Day for December 4 is:

adulate   \AJ-uh-layt\   verb 
      : to flatter or admire excessively or slavishly 

Example sentence: 
      It bothered Joan that her nephews seemed to adulate sport stars more than 
their own parents or teachers.

Did you know? 
      Man's best friend is often thought of in admiring terms as faithful and 
true, but there are also those people who more clearly perceive the fawning and 
cringing aspect of doggishness. When the Romans used the Latin verb "adulari" 
to mean "to fawn on," they equated it with the behavior of a dog toward its 
master. The actual root of the word may even be connected to a word for "tail" 
(which, of course, brings tail wagging to mind). In English, we first used the 
noun "adulation," meaning "exhibition of excessive fondness" (similar in 
meaning but not etymologically related to "adoration"), then the adjective 
"adulatory" (an adulatory speech, for example, is an excessively flattering 
one), before we came up with the verb in the 18th century.





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