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wheedle
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Etymology
Uncertain. Perhaps continuing Middle English wedlen (“to beg, ask for alms”), from Old English wǣdlian (“to be poor, be needy, be in want, beg”), from Proto-Germanic *wēþlōną (“to be in need”).
Alternatively (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?), borrowed from German wedeln (“to wag one's tail”), from Middle High German wedelen, a byform of Middle High German wadelen (“to wander, waver, wave, whip, stroke, flutter”), from Old High German wādalōn (“to wander, roam, rove”). In this case, it may be a doublet of waddle, or an independently formed etymological equivalent.
The ⟨wh⟩ spelling (reflecting pronunciations with /ʍ/) is apparently unetymological. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “What is the origin of the "wh"?”)
Pronunciation
- (without the wine–whine merger) IPA(key): /ˈʍiː.dəl/
- (wine–whine merger) IPA(key): /ˈwiː.dəl/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -iːdəl
Verb
wheedle (third-person singular simple present wheedles, present participle wheedling, simple past and past participle wheedled)
- (ambitransitive) To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
- Synonyms: butter up, inveigle, sweet-talk; see also Thesaurus:coax
- I’d like one of those, too, if you can wheedle him into telling you where he got it.
- 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC:
- […] 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.
- 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):
- “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—”
- a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise:
- Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time. He's as bent as I am.
- 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, in Nevill Coghill, transl., The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 290:
- Though he had beaten me in every bone / He still could wheedle me to love.
- (transitive) To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.
- 1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene xviii, page 51:
- 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; [...]
- 1798, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, “[Maria: or, The] Wrongs of Woman”, in W[illiam] Godwin, editor, Posthumous Works of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […]; and G[eorge,] G[eorge] and J[ohn] Robinson, […], →OCLC:
- 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.
- 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
- […] 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 […]
Derived terms
Translations
cajole
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obtain by guile or trickery
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Noun
wheedle (plural wheedles)
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