obeisant


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o·bei·sance

 (ō-bā′səns, ō-bē′-)
n.
1. A gesture or movement of the body, such as a curtsy, that expresses deference or homage.
2. An attitude of deference or homage.

[Middle English obeisaunce, from Old French obeissance, from obeissant, present participle of obeir, to obey; see obey.]

o·bei′sant adj.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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obeisant

adjective
Marked by courteous submission or respect:
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
We are today a people in distress, left adrift at sea - with a President who acts in an exceedingly obeisant and unpresidential manner alongside an arrogant foreign secretary who regularly tweets undiplomatically.
In such an atmosphere while every citizen is entitled to enjoy the rights and interest bestowed under the constitutional and statutory law, he is also obligated to remain obeisant to the command of law," CJI Misra said.
In a Foucauldian view, the assembled CEOs seemed like little princes, each sovereign in his own principality but obeisant. Their wills would be obeyed in their own territories, but they would obey, be subservient to, his will: America First.
Nor are the other nine members necessarily less obeisant. The appeal and the fear of China together, albeit variably distributed across ASEAN's ten states, favour accommodation over critique let alone rebuke.
If the chain she's fond of wearing round her neck is not symbolic of her real status, then the quality of our representatives increasingly reflects a country that is obeisant, tractable or just too busy to notice.
Between CRM technologies, customer-facing protocols verging on obeisant, and attempted customer service upselling, the customer service mindset is getting really confusing.
The awkward greetings started in the foyer with a frog-faced black-a-moor, an amphibian cousin to the obeisant figurines that populated Fred Wilson's US pavilion project at the 2003 Venice Biennale.
Yet only one--The Road--is judged anxiously obeisant. Indeed, Scott's review of that film describes its script as "follow[ing] the novel as faithfully as a hunting dog" ("Father").
Had Machiavelli heard of such policies or strategies as strategic restraint and offshore balancing, or alternately preemptive war and domino theory, he would have recognized how a prince obeisant to public fears could follow any one of them to perdition.
Wearing the spurious mask of innocence and the wronged, he has all through played an obeisant courtier to demonise it at the behest of his foreign masters and handlers.