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wheedle

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 8 November 2008

Etymology

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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 (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?), 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. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “What is the origin of the "wh"?”)

Pronunciation

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Verb

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wheedle (third-person singular simple present wheedles, present participle wheedling, simple past and past participle wheedled)

  1. (ambitransitive) To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
    Synonyms: butter up, inveigle, sweet-talk; see also Thesaurus:coax
    I’d like one of those, too, if you can wheedle him into telling you where he got it.
    • 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 1818), →OCLC:
      […] 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.
    • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):
      “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—”
    • a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise‎[1]:
      Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time. He's as bent as I am.
    • 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, in Nevill Coghill, transl., The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 290:
      Though he had beaten me in every bone / He still could wheedle me to love.
  2. (transitive) To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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wheedle (plural wheedles)

  1. (archaic) A coaxing person.

Anagrams

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