fulsome
Other forms: fulsomest
Compliments usually make you feel pretty good, but fulsome compliments, which are exaggerated and usually insincere, may have the opposite effect.
Hundreds of years ago fulsome used to mean "abundant," but now it's more often used to describe an ingratiating manner or an excess of flattery that might provoke an onlooker to mime gagging. If you find fulsome to be a rather clunky word, there are several fun (if vaguely stomach-churning) synonyms, including buttery, oily, oleaginous, and smarmy.
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unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech
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The Story Behind "Fulsome"
Vocabulary lists containing fulsome
It's important to be precise about behavior. Saying that "someone breaks the rules" is boring and doesn't convey the nerve they have in breaking them the way "someone is brazenly flouting the rules" does. Here are words about behavior that are easy to confuse with other words, or easy to be confused about, period. Is that in- at the beginning of intemperate a negative or not? What does that mean for the word as a whole? What about the in- at the start of inure? Learn this list and find out!
After a shipwreck separates her from her twin brother, Viola disguises herself as a man so she can pass safely through the land of Illyria. There she befriends Duke Orsino and tries to help him win the affections of Countess Olivia. Read the full text here.