adulation
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of adulation
Middle English < Middle French < Latin adūlātiōn- (stem of adūlātiō ) servile flattery, fawning, equivalent to adūlāt ( us ), past participle of adūlārī, -āre to fawn upon (of dogs), apparently a nominal derivative, with ad- ad-, of an otherwise unattested base + -iōn- -ion
Explanation
If you've ever been to a pop concert filled with screaming fans you've probably been exposed to adulation — praise so over-the-top it's almost embarrassing. The Latin word adulatio means "flattery." It's made up of the roots ad ("to") and ulos ("tail"), and if you're thinking of a dog wagging its tail to and fro to get a treat from its owner, you're on the right track. As anyone who's seen a crazed fan drooling over a celebrity knows, adulation is one of the more doglike of human behaviors.
Vocabulary lists containing adulation
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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Native Son
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Such adulation - and scrutiny - has come quickly for Katseye.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Although the strange oppressiveness of collective adulation isn’t new, it is becoming far more ubiquitous – and insidious – in the attention economy.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
Pizza popped up as often as pate on plates, while one caterer from La Reunion has won social media adulation for his gifts of cari, a spicy dish popular on the Indian Ocean island.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
Presumably they were hoping for more than this, since the proposal has been met with raised eyebrows rather than adulation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
He had never been celebrated for anything, and yet here he was, a part of something that was the focus of not just admiration but a kind of adulation.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
