different between obsequious vs biddable

English

Etymology

From Latin obsequi?sus (“complaisant, obsequious”) , from obsequium (“compliance”), from obsequor (“comply with, yield to”), from ob (“in the direction of, towards”) + sequor (“follow”) (see sequel).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?b?si?kwi.?s/

Adjective

obsequious (comparative more obsequious, superlative most obsequious)

1. (archaic) Obedient; compliant with someone else's orders or wishes.
2. Excessively eager and attentive to please or to obey instructions; fawning, subservient, servile.
   • 1927, Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, p. 20

     Translation falls especially short of this conceit which carries the whole flamboyance of the Spanish language. It was intended as an obsequious flattery of the Condesa, and was untrue.
3. (obsolete) Of or pertaining to obsequies, funereal.

Synonyms

• (obedient): See also Thesaurus:obedient
• (fawning or subservient): fawning, ingratiating, servile, slavish, sycophantic, truckling, smarmy, asskissing ; see also Thesaurus:sycophantic

Derived terms

• obsequiously
• obsequiousness

Related terms

Translations

References

English

Etymology

bid +? -able

Adjective

biddable (comparative more biddable, superlative most biddable)

1. Docile, amenable or compliant.
   • 1922, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Chapter, [2]

     The conscripts took their fate unquestioning: resignedly, after the custom of Turkish peasantry. […] There was about them a hopeless, fever-wasted lack of initiative, which made them the most biddable, most enduring, and least spirited soldiers in the world.

   • 2005, Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, Penguin, Part Two, Chapter XIII, p. 431,

     What Western diplomats thought they saw in Bucharest's anti-Russian autocrats were the germs of a new Tito: stable, biddable and more interested in local power than international disruption.

2. (bridge) Suitable for bidding.

Translations

Derived terms

• biddability
• biddably
• unbiddable

Anagrams

• ad libbed, ad-libbed, adlibbed