Obsequious
adj ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Excessively eager and attentive to please or to obey instructions; fawning, subservient, servile.
"Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration, and I read the same feeling in the faces of Lord John and Summerlee, but Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun."
- 2 Obedient; compliant with someone else's orders or wishes. archaic
"Our ladies were situated as well as it was possible; they had good servants, splendid rooms, obsequious attendants, and had become habituated to the country, so that the loss of the Count was not any thing of moment beyond the pleasure of his society;[…]"
- 3 Of or pertaining to obsequies, funereal. obsolete
"[…] the ſuruiuer bound / In filliall obligation for ſome tearme To doe obſequious ſorrowe […]"
- 1 attentive in an ingratiating or servile manner wordnet
- 2 attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery wordnet
Example
More examples"The obsequious waiter is usually assigned the best table because he always curries favor with his manager and superiors."
Etymology
From Middle English obsequyous, from Latin obsequiōsus (“complaisant, obsequious”), from obsequium (“compliance”), from obsequor (“comply with, yield to”), from ob (“in the direction of, towards”) + sequor (“follow”) (cf. sequel).
More for "obsequious"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.