What do you call someone who is easily influenced?

Question

I am looking for a term with bad connotation. I am aware of the popular terms like "he/she has no personality", pliable, malleable, weak-minded but i couldn't find any more on the insulting side. It could be an idiom or a single word.

For example:

I just bought this bag yesterday and he came today with a new one too

He never talks to her and now he does –just because I did in the morning. He is such a ____

How is that person easily influenced? Does (s)he believe everything people say? Can you show us an example sentence where the word/phrase would be used with context? The following is the strict rule of this community. Questions on choosing an ideal word or phrase must include information on how it will be used in order to be answered. For help writing a good word or phrase request, see: About single word requests. Please edit your question accordingly. — , May 20 '16 at 15:30
Both the examples look more like "slavish copycat" than what I'd normally think of as "easily influenced", since in both cases it's unlikely the speaker actually intended to influence the [toady?, sycophant?]. — FumbleFingers, May 20 '16 at 15:46
@FumbleFingers You are right this is a not intended influence — Ed_, May 20 '16 at 15:48
In some contexts (he only bought his wife champagne & a single rose for her birthday because he knew *I* did that last month for my wife) you might say he's just *unimaginative*. — FumbleFingers, May 20 '16 at 15:59
By the way, the usual idiom in English is "What do you call [something]," not "How do you call [something]." See this question: How do you call..? vs. What do you call…? — herisson, May 20 '16 at 18:16

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered May 20 '16 at 17:49

These seem to fit your criteria:

impressionable - easily influenced because of a lack of critical ability.

susceptible - likely or liable to be influenced or harmed by a particular thing.

Note these words fit your title and description much better than they do your examples.

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

2

Consider credulous. While this is not necessarily a term with a bad connotation, it can be considered a negative attribute. Here's another post asking for a similar word: Word for people easily influenced by propaganda

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

Community

1

answered May 20 '16 at 15:54

C.L. Augustine

21

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered May 23 '16 at 19:41

2

Try a thesaurus search on Gullible or Follower

Some words you might like are Patsy, Sucker, Lemming, Sheeple, Lackey, Flunkey, Copycat, Follower, Aper, etc.

answered May 23 '16 at 19:41

public wireless

1,247

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 03 '21 at 19:51

In a TED talk about male-female relationships, I heard the host, a native English speaker, use the term 'influenceable', as in 'Men must be influenceable to make good fathers', or something like that. However, in the examples you gave, I feel a negative connotation is called for because these sentences do describe a copycat! :)

What do you call someone who is easily influenced?

4 Answers4

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