wheedle
/ˈʍiː.dəl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.77 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "“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—”"
- "Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time. He's as bent as I am."
- "Though he had beaten me in every bone / He still could wheedle me to love."
- "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; [...]"
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 , 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.