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excessive devotion to someone; servile flattery.
to show excessive admiration or devotion to; flatter or admire servilely.
Historical Examples

Is there no retributive justice dogging his heels, from which all the glories and adulations of earth cannot shield him?
The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant Alexander Johnstone Wilson

The Phnicians who surrounded the king lavished upon him adulations borrowed from paganism.
The Apostles Ernest Renan

But we neither sought their friendship, nor coveted their adulations.
Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; William Gannaway Brownlow

A few days before, the adulations and applauses of a nation were sounding in her ears, and now she was come to this!
A Tramp Abroad, Complete Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

But he turned from their adulations almost impatiently to throw himself into the mission in the slums.
Phases of an Inferior Planet Ellen Glasgow

The heaping up of adulations, of which this mele is a capital instance, was not peculiar to Hawaiian poetry.
Unwritten Literature of Hawaii Nathaniel Bright Emerson

I prefer open attacks to the foolish praise and adulations of friends, for, the truth is, flattery is always paid for.
Friars and Filipinos Jose Rizal

We have all smiled at the adulations of an ancient preface and the arrogance which too often baulked the poor writer’s hopes.
The Great Book-Collectors Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

Afterwards the memory of these adulations was a great sadness.
End of the Tether Joseph Conrad

The ladies, in particular, lavished upon him adulations without any bounds.
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851 Various

verb
(transitive) to flatter or praise obsequiously
noun
obsequious flattery or praise; extreme admiration
v.

1777, back-formation from adulation.
n.

late 14c., “insincere praise,” from Old French adulacion, from Latin adulationem (nominative adulatio) “a fawning; flattery, cringing courtesy,” noun of action from past participle stem of aduliari “to flatter,” from ad- “to” (see ad-) + ulos “tail,” from PIE *ul- “the tail” (cf. Sanskrit valah “tail,” Lithuanian valai “horsehair of the tail”). The original notion is “to wag the tail” like a fawning dog (cf. Greek sainein “to wag the tail,” also “to flatter;” see also wheedle).