coax
UK/kəʊks//koʊks/
coax verb: to fondle, kid, pet, tease. Also the clipping of coaxial cable.
Verb
coax (third-person singular simple present coaxes, present participle coaxing, simple past and past participle coaxed)
- To fondle, kid, pet, tease.
- To wheedle or persuade (a person, organisation, animal etc.) gradually or by use of flattery to do something.
- She was so mad she wouldn't speak to me for quite a spell, but at last I coaxed her into going up to Miss Emmeline's room and fetching down a tintype of the missing Deacon man.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
- 12 July 2012, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift
On paper, Continental Drift boasts a jaw-dropping voice cast, including but not limited to Jennifer Lopez, Patrick Stewart, Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Nicki Minaj, Drake, and Alan Tudyk. But in practice, the...
- To carefully manipulate (someone or something) into a particular desired state, situation or position.
- They coaxed the rope through the pipe.
- I've finally coaxed the sticky drawers open.
Noun
coax (plural coaxes)
- A simpleton; a dupe.
- Go, you're a brainless Coax, a Toy, a Fop, I'll go no farther than your Name, Sir Gregoryc. 1613, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, “Wit at Several Weapons. A Comedy.”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC...
Also used as
coax is also the clipping of coaxial cable.
coax is also the clipping of coaxial.
coax meaning in Arabic, Thai and Vietnamese
coax in Arabic
- persuade gradually
- تَمَلَّقَ tamallaqa
coax in Thai
- persuade gradually
- เกลี้ยกล่อม, ชักจูง
coax in Vietnamese
- persuade gradually
- dỗ, tán, phỉnh
Examples of coax in a sentence
- The brakeman had to help the fireman shovel coal into the firebox as the engineer coaxed his locomotive up grade.
- He bent down to unsmother a still-warm vineroot and coaxed it alive.
- Alexander succeeded in taming Bucephalus by turning him towards the sun and by coaxing him very gently.
Synonyms of coax
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of coax
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | coaxes |
| present participle | coaxing |
| past participle | coaxed |
| past | coaxed |
| Noun | |
| plural | coaxes |
Origin of coax
Originally (1586) in the slang phrase to make a coax of, from earlier noun coax, cox, cokes "fool, simpleton", itself of obscure origin, perhaps related to cock (“male bird, pert boy”). The modern spelling is from 1706.
Shortened from coaxial
Words formed from coax
Phrases with coax
Words that rhyme with coax
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about coax
- What does coax mean?
- Coax means to fondle, kid, pet, tease.
- What is coax in Arabic?
- Coax in Arabic is تَمَلَّقَ (tamallaqa). See Coax meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is coax?
- Coax can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce coax?
- Coax is pronounced /kəʊks/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of coax?
- The past tense of coax is coaxed.
Words near coax in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coax (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-coax-verb.ogg.
Cite this entry: “coax.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coax. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.