Definition of "wheedle"

wheedle

/ˈʍiː.dəl/

verb
third-person singular simple present wheedles, present participle wheedling, simple past and past participle wheedled
1. (transitive, intransitive) To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
  Quotations
  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 (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 290
2. (transitive) To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.
  Quotations
  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, […], Act III, scene xviii, page 51
noun
plural wheedles
1. (archaic) A coaxing person.

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