ingratiate

Andy looks like a human adult but behaves like an awkward, stammering middle-schooler eager to ingratiate himself with his peers by telling toothless jokes straight out of a Scholastic pun manual.

But when Oliver walks into the store, entourage in tow, Matthew makes a play to ingratiate himself with the pop star that goes better than he ever could’ve expected.

His efforts to ingratiate himself with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have brought the war no closer to an end.

Separately, Mr Hampshire also reflected on his worries about people trying to ingratiate themselves with Andrew "in order to make excessive money out the Duke or their association with him".

Sir Keir, like Emmanuel Macron before him, had sought to ingratiate himself with the wildly unpredictable American president, convinced that was the pragmatic course of action.