Wheedle

/ˈʍiː.dəl/ · verb

Meaning

(ambitransitive) To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery..

Definitions by Sense

1. (ambitransitive) To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
2. (transitive) To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.
3. (archaic) A coaxing person.

Example Sentences

I’d like one of those, too, if you can wheedle him into telling you where he got it.

[…]whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the wife of Sir William.

“Brother Peter,” he said, in a wheedling yet gravely official tone, “It’s nothing but right I should speak to you about the Three Crofts and the Manganese. The Almighty knows what I’ve got on my mind—”

Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time. He's as bent as I am.

Though he had beaten me in every bone / He still could wheedle me to love.

If the worſt come to the worſt,—I'll turn my Wife to Graſs—I already have a deed of Settlement of the beſt part of her Eſtate; which I wheadl'd out of her; [...]

She tore off my cap, scratched, kicked, and buffetted me, till she had exhausted her strength, declaring, as she rested her arm, ‘that I had wheedled her husband from her.

[…]when their best resources were the flitches of bacon and measures of corn, out of which they wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange for their prayers[…]

Synonyms for wheedle

Antonyms for wheedle

Related Words

Word Forms

• wheedles
• wheedling
• wheedled

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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