Alcoholics Anonymous · Glossary

flattered

headword flatter · adjective; verb (simple past and past participle of flatter) · read in Alcoholics Anonymous (1939)

In context

Here: In the passage, flattered is the plain past-participle sense of the verb: pleased and gratified by the attention and honor shown to him. The young officers were made to feel important when the town's leading citizens took them into their homes.

For a reader in 1939 the verb flatter meant first of all to please with praise or attentions. Webster's Collegiate (5th ed., 1939) gives sense 1 as "To shower praise or attentions upon, to gratify the recipient's vanity or to ingratiate oneself; blandish." Webster's New International (1923) and the 1913 Revised Unabridged agree: to gratify "the self-love or vanity of, esp. by artful and interested commendation or attentions". Webster's 1828 defines the participle itself: "Soothed by praise; pleased by commendation; gratified with hopes, false or well founded; wheedled." That is the sense of the word in the Book's first paragraph.

What the 1939 sense brings out is the vanity at the root of the word. The Collegiate and the New International both name the recipient's vanity and self-love as what flattery gratifies. Read that way, the officers being "flattered" is more than a pleasant detail. It marks the opening of a story about gratified self-importance, where being made to feel heroic, and the love and applause that followed, were the pleasure being taken. Even a polite word here quietly carries the dictionary's hint of vanity.

Usages

  • “Others he flattered by asking their advice.” — Webster's New International Dictionary (1923 printing)
  • “A man that flattereth his neighbor, spreadeth a net for his feet.” — Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
  • She was flattered when the senior partner asked her to lunch. illustration, written for this note
  • The new recruits were flattered by the colonel's attention and ready to follow him anywhere. illustration, written for this note
  • He flattered himself that nobody had noticed his mistake. illustration, written for this note

Written by Claude (sonnet) from the dictionaries and passages of the lookup; every quotation in it was checked against them, and what could not be found was left out. A study aid, not a source.

The dictionaries of 1939

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Flatter \Flat′ter, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Flattered; p. pr. & vb. n. Flattering.] [OE. flateren, cf. OD. flatteren; akin to G. flattern to flutter, Icel. fla[eth]ra to fawn, flatter: cf. F. flatter. Cf. Flitter, Flutter, Flattery.]

  1. To treat with praise or blandishments; to gratify or attempt to gratify the self-love or vanity of, esp. by artful and interested commendation or attentions; to blandish; to cajole; to wheedle. When I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered. —Shak. A man that flattereth his neighbor, spreadeth a net for his feet. —Prov. xxix. 5. Others he flattered by asking their advice. —Prescott.
  2. To raise hopes in; to encourage or favorable, but sometimes unfounded or deceitful, representations.
  3. To portray too favorably; to give a too favorable idea of; as, his portrait flatters him.

— Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), the [1913 Webster] text of GCIDE on dict.org

The dictionary on a 1939 desk was Webster's Second New International (1934), in copyright until 2030; the Collegiate above is its 1939 abridgment, from a local scan, and the New International of 1923 the unabridged edition before it, public domain. Webster's Revised Unabridged (1913) is the nearest public-domain dictionary online.

Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

FLAT'TERED, participle passive Soothed by praise; pleased by commendation; gratified with hopes, false or well founded; wheedled. — Webster's 1828

WordNet 3.0 (Princeton, 2006)

  • verb 1: praise somewhat dishonestly [syn: flatter, blandish] [ant: belittle, disparage, pick at]

— WordNet 3.0 on dict.org

In the Book 1

Alcoholics Anonymous 1

  • BB p.1 ¶1 …ran high in the New England town to which we new, young officers from Plattsburg were assigned, and we were flattered when the first citizens took us to their homes, making us feel heroic. Here was love, applause, war; moments…