- Ingratiate verb (ingratiate oneself)
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Bring oneself into favor with someone by flattering or trying to please them: a social climber who had tried to ingratiate herself with the city gentry.
This word is just a more formal version of the expression “to suck up” or of the less popular phrase “brown-nosing.”I learned this word while riding in a car in Southern Spain with some British ladies, apparently this expression is commonly used in England. We were chatting about how some unnamed parties really were ingratiating themselves with the director in an effort to get some new equipment put into the budget. Maybe I just made that up, at any rate, you should feel more intelligent having learned a new word.
