wheedle
/ˈʍiː.dəl/
wheedle verb: to cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
Verb
wheedle (third-person singular simple present wheedles, present participle wheedling, simple past and past participle wheedled)
- To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
- 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.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...
- Synonyms:
- butter up, inveigle, sweet-talk, blandander, blandish, cajole, sweeten, fast-talk, canoodle, carny
- To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.
- 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; [...]1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene xviii, page 51
- 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.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]...
Noun
wheedle (plural wheedles)
- A coaxing person.
wheedle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
wheedle in Tamil
- இச்சகம் பேசிக் காரியமாற்று, மயக்கிப் பேசி வசமாக்கு, கவர்ந்திழு, நயமாக ஏமாற்று
wheedle in Urdu
- چاپلوسی کرنا, خوشامد کرنا, پھسلانا, ورغلانا
wheedle in Bengali
- মিষ্টি কথায় রাজি করানো
wheedle in Malayalam
- cajole, coax, inveigle
- പറഞ്ഞുപാട്ടിലാക്കുക, വശത്താക്കുക, മുഖസ്തുതി പറഞ്ഞു കബളിപ്പിക്കുക, ചക്കരവാക്കു പറഞ്ഞു കാര്യം സാധിക്കുക, സ്നേഹം കാണിച്ചു വശത്താക്കുക, മുഖസ്തുതികൊണ്ടു പ്രലോഭിപ്പിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- wheedle in Kannada
- ಪುಸಲಾಯಿಸು, ಮರುಳುಮಾಡು, ಹೊಗಳಿ ಮೋಸಮಾಡು, ಹೊಗಳಿ ಒಲಿಸು
- wheedle in Punjabi
- ਵਡਿਆਉਣਾ vaḍiāuṇā
Examples of wheedle in a sentence
- Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time.a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise:
- Though he had beaten me in every bone / He still could wheedle me to love.1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, in Nevill Coghill, transl., The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English...
- […]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[…]1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […]...
Synonyms of wheedle
17 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of wheedle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | wheedles |
| present participle | wheedling |
| past participle | wheedled |
| past | wheedled |
| Noun | |
| plural | wheedles |
Origin of wheedle
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 , 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.
Words formed from wheedle
Words that rhyme with wheedle
Questions about wheedle
- What does wheedle mean?
- Wheedle means to cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
- What is wheedle in Tamil?
- Wheedle in Tamil is இச்சகம் பேசிக் காரியமாற்று, மயக்கிப் பேசி வசமாக்கு, கவர்ந்திழு. See Wheedle meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use wheedle in a sentence?
- Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time.
- What part of speech is wheedle?
- Wheedle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce wheedle?
- Wheedle is pronounced /ˈʍiː.dəl/.
- What is the past tense of wheedle?
- The past tense of wheedle is wheedled.
Words near wheedle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wheedle (page history and authors); wheedle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wheedle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wheedle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); wheedle (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); wheedle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਵਡਿਆਉਣਾ (Punjabi) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wheedle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wheedle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wheedle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.