Forms: 4 adulacioun, adulacion, adulation. [a. OFr. adulacion, ad. L. adūlātiōn-em, n. of action f. adūlā-ri: see ADULATE.] Servile flattery or homage; exaggerated and hypocritical praise to which the bestower consciously stoops.

1

c. 1380.  Chaucer, Bal. Good Counsail (R.). Men woll … call faire speache adulacion.

2

1429.  Pol. Poems (1859), II. 145. Eschew flatery and adulacioun.

3

1538.  Bale, Thre Lawes, 964. By fayned flatterye, and by coloured adulacyon.

4

1582.  N. T. (Rhem.), 1 Thess. ii. 5. For neither haue we been at any time in the word of adulation, as you know.

5

1599.  Shaks., Hen. V., IV. i. 271. Thinks thou the fierie Feuer will goe out With Titles blowne from Adulation?

6

1766.  Goldsm., Vic. Wakef., iii. 18. Adulation ever follows the ambitious, for such alone receive pleasure from flattery.

7

1858.  O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., xii. 115. I have two letters on file; one is a pattern of adulation, the other of impertinence.

8