guile
/ɡaɪl/
guile noun: astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception. Also the obsolete form of gold.
Noun
guile (countable and uncountable, plural guiles)
- Astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception.
- It was a result that owed a lot to a moment of guile from Ramires but more to a display of guts from the Brazilian and his team-mates after Terry's needless dismissal eight minutes before half-time for driving a knee into the back of Alexis Sanchez off the ball.2012 April 24, Phil Dawkes, “Barcelona 2-2 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport
- Estonia were struggling to get to grips with the game while Ireland were showing a composure and guile that demonstrated their experience in play-off ties.2011 November 11, Rory Houston, “Estonia 0-4 Republic of Ireland”, in RTE Sport
- Deceptiveness, deceit, fraud, duplicity, dishonesty.
- Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 1:47
Verb
guile (third-person singular simple present guiles, present participle guiling, simple past and past participle guiled)
Proper noun capitalized: Guile
Guile (plural Guiles)
- A surname from French.
Also used as
guile is also the obsolete form of gold.
guile is also the alternative form of gyle.
Forms of guile
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | guiles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | guiles |
| present participle | guiling |
| past participle | guiled |
| past | guiled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Guiles |
Origin of guile
From Middle English gile, from Anglo-Norman gile, from Old French guile (“deception”), from Frankish *wīl (“ruse”), from Proto-Germanic *wīlą, from Proto-Indo-European *wey- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate via Proto-Germanic with wile.
Variant forms.
* As an English, Scottish, and French surname, borrowed from French guile. * Also as an English surname, variant of Gill. * Possibly also Americanized from the German surname Geil.
Words formed from guile
Words that rhyme with guile
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- gentile
- kyle
- reptile
- sile
- smile
- Lyle
- tile
- while
- beguile
- bile
- Nile
- spile
- argyll
- awhile
- enisle
- gyle
- I'll
- last mile
- nubile
- resile
- restyle
- rile
- senile
- stile
- vile
- autogynephile
- bewile
- chile
- chyle
- Cnile
- District of Argyle
- heil
- ile
- interfile
- isle
- Japanophile
- Kabyle
- kile
- like it's going out of style
- Persophile
- redial
- refile
- revile
- Styal
- thyle
- tickler file
- wile
- worthwhile
Questions about guile
- What does guile mean?
- Guile means astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception.
- What part of speech is guile?
- Guile can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce guile?
- Guile is pronounced /ɡaɪl/.
- What is the plural of guile?
- The plural of guile is guiles.
Words near guile in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: guile (page history and authors); Guile (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-guile.wav.
Cite this entry: “guile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.