A flatterer, someone who curries favour. The term comes from the image of the ingratiating pupil who polishes an apple carefully before presenting it to a teacher. The tradition of 'an apple for the teacher' was really practised in rural USA before World War II, but the term is common in all English-speaking areas. It is some- times in the form of a verb, as in 'she's been apple-polishing again'. In Britain, it is often shortened to polisher.

'I had few qualifications for Hollywood; I was immoderately slothful, had no facility for salesmanship or apple-polishing, and possessed a very low boiling point.'

(S. J. Perelman, quoted in Groucho, Har- po, Chico & sometimes Zeppo, Joe Adamson, 1973)