Today’s Words That Work: Obsequious

Obsequious  (ub-SEE-kwee-us) — from the Latin for “to comply with” — means excessively eager to please; attentive in an ingratiating or servile manner.

Example (as used by Richard Russo in Straight Man): “[The houses we lived in] had hardwood floors and smoky fireplaces with fires in them only when my father held court, which he did either on Friday afternoons, our large rooms filling up with obsequious junior faculty and nervous grad students, or Saturday evenings, when my mother gave dinner parties for the chair of the department, or the dean, or a visiting poet.”