as in subordinate
disapproving
too eager to help or obey someone important
She's constantly followed by obsequious assistants who will do anything she tells them to.
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Recent Examples of obsequious
Hugh Grant and a scented candle terrorize two young missionaries in the trailer for A24's Heretic
Grant exudes an almost obsequious congeniality before letting something more sinister seep from his pores.
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Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 10 Sep. 2024
Each segment sinks into depravity: First, Jesse Plemons, an obsequious employee, obeys his boss Willem Dafoe’s orders to kill.
—Armond White, National Review, 21 June 2024
And, even though the boy is unseen, the actor sure has nailed down the aggressively obsequious kind of intimacy with youth that has cost society so much.
—Chris Jones, New York Daily News, 7 Mar. 2024
Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian political elite have grown more pliant in implementing Putin’s orders and more obsequious in pandering to his paranoid worldview.
—Maksim Samorukov, Foreign Affairs, 25 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for obsequious 
Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 10 Sep. 2024
Each segment sinks into depravity: First, Jesse Plemons, an obsequious employee, obeys his boss Willem Dafoe’s orders to kill.
—Armond White, National Review, 21 June 2024
And, even though the boy is unseen, the actor sure has nailed down the aggressively obsequious kind of intimacy with youth that has cost society so much.
—Chris Jones, New York Daily News, 7 Mar. 2024
Since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian political elite have grown more pliant in implementing Putin’s orders and more obsequious in pandering to his paranoid worldview.
—Maksim Samorukov, Foreign Affairs, 25 Apr. 2024
See all Example Sentences for obsequious
Recent Examples of Synonyms for obsequious
Adjective
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Trager did not respond to questions from The Courier Journal about whether the mayor had watched videos of the pregnant woman receiving a citation or of Stewart's subordinate using force on the man at the downtown hotel.Josh Wood, The Courier-Journal, 20 Dec. 2024
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The social critique was still in there but subordinate to these rich, comically flawed characters, each getting something like their own book.Adam Moss, Vulture, 25 Nov. 2024
Adjective
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Anyone who meets the gentle, obedient boy would never call him that.Bebe Hodges, USA TODAY, 15 Nov. 2024
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Of course, anyone who meets the gentle, obedient boy would never call him that.Bebe Hodges, The Enquirer, 11 Nov. 2024
Adjective
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The weighty subject of Whitehead’s novel seems to demand a straight story—the kind that announces its respect for the material through impressively unvarnished performances, dutiful attention to period trappings, a tasteful approach to the story’s violence.K. Austin Collins, The Atlantic, 13 Dec. 2024
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As Hanks’s savvy, dutiful assistant, Adams is the paste that keeps a film full of larger-than-life performances earthbound.Matthew Jacobs, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2024
Adjective
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His co-stars, like Will Ferrell’s savage Mugatu, Owen Wilson’s stoner hottie Hansel, and Nathan Lee Graham’s servile Todd — all so precise and well-defined in the original’s ravelike milieu — are doomed to retrace their old steps here.Sean Malin, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024
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These officials could, in turn, redistribute some of their private goods among their own servile lieutenants, but the monarch retained ultimate power to grant or revoke their privileged status.Serhiy Kudelia, Foreign Affairs, 27 Feb. 2014
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Cite this Entry
“Obsequious.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/obsequious. Accessed 28 Dec. 2024.
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