Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use persuade in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Persuade means to successfully convince (someone) to agree to, accept, or do something, usually through reasoning and verbal influence. Example: “That salesman was able to persuade me into buying this bottle of lotion.”

Examples of persuade by meaning

verbTo successfully convince (someone) to agree to, accept, or do something, usually through reasoning and verbal influence.

  • That salesman was able to persuade me into buying this bottle of lotion.
  • He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance.1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […]...
  • His ability to run at defences is instantly striking, but it is his clever use of possession that has persuaded some shrewd judges that he is an even better prospect than Theo Walcott.2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph

More sentences with persuade

  • She was dubious about my plan at first, but later I managed to persuade her to cooperate.From the entry dubious
  • She persuaded us to give up our time to the project.From the entry give up
  • I refused to go with them, but in the end I was persuaded.From the entry in the end
  • I finally persuaded the landlord to tear up the lease and move to a month-by-month rental.From the entry tear up
  • I was half persuaded by your convincing argument.From the entry half
  • A confident demeanor is crucial for persuading others.From the entry demeanor
  • Jessie was going to wear pants to school, but her brother persuaded her to wear shorts to preserve normality.From the entry normality
  • Apparently his best idea for persuading someone is to get them liquored up and then wear them down.From the entry liquor up
  • In persuading the Lord Sun Ce, which many modern tacticians judged as nothing short of a feat, Zhuge Liang was considered quite facund.From the entry facund
  • The e-mail campaign failed to persuade the university to keep Project Gutenberg alive.2016, Justin Peters, “The Infinite Librarian”, in The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry inflood
  • Through online relationships, current loyal customers can possibly persuade new customers to jump on the brandwagon.2013, Barbara E. Kahn, Global Brand Power: Leveraging Branding for Long-Term Growth, page 17. From the entry brandwagon
  • He recently persuaded the Mongolian government to give him $1 million for preliminary planning.2013 September 20, Bill Donahue, “Mongolia’s economy is soaring, but at what cost?”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from…. From the entry Sainshand
  • Focus on the ways in which the sites use scientific-sounding language and arguments to persuade people.2012, Cyndy Scheibe, Faith Rogow, “Chapter 7: Media Literacy Lesson Plans”, in The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy: Critical Thinking in…. From the entry dihydrogenmonoxide
  • Well, I’ll be danfangled, my mother nodded, for she could never be persuaded to curse outright.2010, Esterházy, Péter,, Not art : a novel, page 178. From the entry danfangled
  • Sledge hammers are only used for heavy-duty persuading when working on vehicles or machinery.2006, Tom Benford, Garage And Workshop Gear Guide. From the entry sledge
  • Hubert is trying to persuade James, a strict Presbyterian and teetotal, to come into the pub.2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 12, in Small Island, London: Review, page 137. From the entry teetotal
  • This overstuffed, smug, showy and sentimental music can almost persuade when it is performed with undoubting conviction.2002 October 6, Mike Greenberg, “Guest, symphony an adept team”, in San Antonio Express-News, page 8B. From the entry undoubting
  • A captain usually laments about a players retirement but nevers persuades with such a relentful approach.2002 September 26, Nikhil Shah, “Nehra out, Ganguly wants Srinath back”, in rec.sport.cricket (Usenet). From the entry relentful
  • In other words, to a large extent, cult members persuade themselves.2001, Kenneth S. Bordens, Irwin A. Horowitz, Social Psychology, Lawrence Erlbaum, →ISBN, page 223. From the entry cognitive dissonance
  • It was not just Oklahoma's subsidies that persuaded Seaboard to relocate.2001 June 24, Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele, “The Empire Of The Pigs”, in Time. From the entry too rich for one's blood
  • I have been attempting to persuade gay organizations and leaders to take this approach, without concrete results.1987 August 15, Tom Keske, “Open Defiance of Sodomy Laws”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 5, page 4. From the entry unattended
  • It persuades, coerces, tempts, compels, romances, and orders the customer to do your bidding.1984, Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing: secrets for making big profits from your small business, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, page 35. From the entry guerrilla marketing
  • It persuaded me to keep driving my '80 until it won't go any more."1981 November 9, P. Witteman, K. Pierce, “Going from Bad to Even Worse”, in Time. From the entry sticker shock
  • When the Quebecians wish to get out, the Ontarians try to persuade them to stay in.1968, Monograph, page 314. From the entry Quebecian
  • Supper had been eaten, the turkey had been trussed, the children at last persuaded into their beds.1964, Hortense Calisher, “A Christmas Carillon”, in Extreme Magic: A Novella and Other Stories, Boston: Little, Brown, page 64. From the entry consolatory
  • He wanted to bung her off to a hospital, but I persuaded him not to."1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 31. From the entry bung
  • Her mother tried to persuade her not to keep the dirty gutter dog.1947, Narayan Sitaram Phadke, Leaves in the August wind: A Novel with the Indian Upheaval of August 1942 for Its Background, Hind Kitabs…. From the entry gutter dog
  • Colonel Hazeltine still had trouble persuading air commanders to drop the nickels.1945, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 217, Curtis Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 79. From the entry nickel
  • Richardson tells us scarcely so much, yet he persuades us so much the more.1936 November, Robert Palfrey Utter, Gwendolyn Bridges Needham, “The Lass with the Delicate Air”, in Pamela’s Daughters, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry brune
  • Sober citizens were becoming persuaded that a panicless, depressionless era had begun.1935, Frederick Lewis Allen, The Lords of Creation. From the entry panicless
  • Harrison persuaded Miss Linnie Davis to come to Chunju as Mrs.1920, Anabel Major Nisbet, “The Preparation (1892-1899)”, in Day In and Day Out in Korea: Being some account of the mission work that has…. From the entry Quelparte
  • Cannot they be peacefully persuaded to attend to their own work, and leave journalism to journalists?1907 June 22, “Notes of the week”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume 103, number 2,695, London: […]…. From the entry flimsy
  • House swapping became such an integral part of our lives that we persuaded friends and family to try it.2025 September 22, Freda Moon, “Tahiti on the Cheap”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry home swapping
  • They lost because they were outhustled and failed to persuade enough Americans to support their vision for the country.2024 December 29, Laurie Woodward Garcia, “Stop Blaming and Start Building a Better Tomorrow”, in People Power United. From the entry outhustle
  • There’s a motive to persuade (people typically prefer taller partners).2022, Moshe Hoffman, Erez Yoeli, Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behaviour, Basic Books, →ISBN. From the entry OkCupider
  • After buying, one has to move from one place to another persuading prospective buyers to take your goods.2021 October 24, Saumu Jumanne, “The plight of ‘machingas’, let’s show some love”, in The Citizen Tanzania, archived from the original on…. From the entry machinga
  • Andrei doubted Miss Kincaid was of an easily persuaded nature.2014, Maggie MacKeever, Vampire, Bespelled. From the entry bespell

Meaning of persuade

  1. verb To successfully convince (someone) to agree to, accept, or do something, usually through reasoning and verbal influence.
  2. verb To convince of by argument, or by reasons offered or suggested from reflection, etc.; to cause to believe (something).
  3. verb To urge, plead; to try to convince (someone to do something).

Full definition of persuade

Questions about persuade in a sentence

How do you use persuade in a sentence?
Persuade is used as a verb. For example: “That salesman was able to persuade me into buying this bottle of lotion.”
What is a short sentence with persuade?
“A confident demeanor is crucial for persuading others.”
What does persuade mean?
Persuade means to successfully convince (someone) to agree to, accept, or do something, usually through reasoning and verbal influence.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: persuade (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use persuade in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/persuade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.