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Wheedle   Listen
verb
Wheedle  v. i.  To flatter; to coax; to cajole.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wheedle" Quotes from Famous Books



... black-gins as well as I do. They'll pretend they're dying in agony just to wheedle a drop of rum or a fig of tobacco out of a white man; and they'll take it quite as a matter of course when one of their men bashes their head in ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it. 'Take my colt, Gipsy, then!' said young Earnshaw. 'And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and he damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan.—And take that, I hope he'll kick ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... much stronger than theirs, as she had always been his darling, and favoured by him above either of them. But Cordelia, disgusted with the flattery of her sisters, whose hearts she knew were far from their lips, and seeing that all their coaxing speeches were only intended to wheedle the old king out of his dominions, that they and their husbands might reign in his lifetime, made no other reply but this, that she loved his majesty according to her duty, neither ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Fabulous Stories and Relations to the King of Spain was made praefect of the Kingdom of Jucatan, in the Year of our Lord 1526; And the other Tyrants to this very day have taken the same indirect Measures to obtain Offices, and screw or wheedle themselves into publick Charges or Employments, for this praetext, and Authority, they had the greater opportunity to commit Theft and Rapine. This Kingdom was very well peopled, and both for Temperature of Air, and ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... didn't come down to wheedle you out of anything, Mrs Chopper, but merely to talk to you, and look at ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... favour of Perseus. Mercury and Minerva, the most sharp-witted of the gods, are helping him all the time—to say nothing of the fact that Perseus starts out by being a notoriously handsome fellow. So a handsome rogue can generally wheedle an elderly, ugly wife into opening her money-bags, and, if successful, leads the enviable life of a fighting-cock. It was very much to his credit that this kind of life was not to the liking of ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... we don't have to consider that matter," Billy concluded. "Apparently the walking impulse isn't in them. They might some time, by hook or crook, wheedle us into letting them fly a little. But one thing is certain, they'll never take a ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... skirmishes of these desperadoes who have landed;' as if an old fellow, who served through the whole war, from '56 to '63, was afraid to let his nose smell gunpowder any more than if it were snuff! But it will be a hard matter to wheedle an old soldier out of his allegiance! This Griffith goes to the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... has read this short Part of the Story, that all this was a Solunarian Church Plot, a meer Conspiracy between these Gentlemen and the Crolian Dissenters, only to wheedle in the unhappy Prince to his own Destruction, and bring the popular Advantage of the Mob, to a greater Ascendant on ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... sorts of silks, cinnamon, spices, wine, gold, pearls, Spanish wooll and cloaths; with the river Nilus, and the stately ships of Tarshish to carry in and out the great merchandizes of the world." In this the city dames are attacked collectively. Individually, he would wheedle them thus into his charitable plans:—"Now pray, dear madam, speak or write to my lady out of hand, and tell her how it is with us; and if she will subscribe a good gob, and get the young ladies to do ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various

... regularly, and a bed to sleep on, if but a pallet, quite as good as he had been accustomed to. Moreover, after some time had elapsed, he was relieved from this close confinement during the hours of the day. A clever actor, and having a tongue that could "wheedle with the devil," he had wheedled with the mayor-domo to granting him certain indulgences; among them being allowed to spend part of his time in the kitchen and scullery. Not in idleness, however, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... central home and breeding- place for all the touts of earth. There are touts insinuating, and touts raucous, greasy touts, brazen touts, and upper-class, refined, gentlemanly, take-you-by-the-arm touts; touts who intimidate and touts who wheedle; professionals, amateurs, and dilettanti, male and female; touts who would photograph you with your arm round a young lady against a faked background of the sublimest cataract, touts who would bully you into cars, char-a-bancs, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... they are? And as for the Amazons," said Cary, "woman's woman, all the world over. I'll bet that you may wheedle them round with a compliment or two, just as if they were so many burghers' wives. Pity I have not a court-suit and a Spanish hat. I would have taken an orange in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, gone all alone to them as ambassador, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... release them and let them wend their ways and be at rest from that their hard labour. So she sent for him and said to him, "If thou wilt do my desire, I will free thee from this thy durance vile and thou shalt go to thy country, safe and sound." And she wept and ceased not to humble herself to him and wheedle him, but he would not hearken to her words; whereupon she turned from him, in anger, and he and his companions abode on the island in the same plight. The islanders knew them for "The Princess's birds" and durst not work them any wrong; and her heart was at ease concerning them, being assured ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... problem, daughter, is it not?" I answered. "Still longing to enter a hospital? And you want to wheedle your old father into giving you up?" for Margaret, like every other modern girl, had been craving entrance to that noble calling. The high-born and the love-lorn, those weary of life, or of love, or both, find a ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... that I would hinder The Scottish member's legislative rigs, That spiritual Pinder, Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs, That must be lash'd by law, wherever found, And driv'n to church, as to the parish pound. I do confess, without reserve or wheedle, I view that grovelling idea as one Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son, A charity-boy, who longs to ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... for Eric, as, after coming to gratify Barbara, he was separated from her by the length of the table. In conversation Mrs. Shelley always gave people what was good for them rather than what they liked; Barbara was accordingly set next to an art editor, who tried to wheedle from her an article on "Eastern Decoration in Western Houses," while Eric found himself sandwiched without hope of escape between Mrs. Manisty, who discussed poetry which he had not read, and the flamboyant novelist, who had lately discovered and ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... the University of North Carolina, this word in its application is almost universal, but generally signifies to cajole, to wheedle, to ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... Manuel, and do you have done with your silly flatterings, which will never wheedle anything out of me! So you have trapped Queen Freydis in mortal flesh. Therefore I must abide in the body of a human woman, and be subject to your whims, and to your beautiful big muscles, you think, until I lend a spark of Audela's true life to your ridiculous images. But I will show you ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... otherwise. His son is well now; but Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal-cutter, by whose advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily the money that she hoped to wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by the seal-cutter, and becomes daily ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by any masterstroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank good-will of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. While we were ascending ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... suggested that it would be well to learn what the old sinner was aiming at. But, as I knew the abbe's weak character, and feared that my Uncle John would manage to win his heart by his lying confessions and wheedle him into some false step, I made up my mind to hide in a thicket whence I ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... the nunnery of Saint Bride, and carry me from hence to freedom and the greenwood, of which Wallace was generally called the king. In an evil hour—an hour I think of infatuation and witchery—I suffered the abbess to wheedle the secret out of me, which I might have been sensible would appear more horribly flagitious to her than to any other woman that breathed; but I had not taken the vows, and I thought Wallace and Fleming had ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... adorned with curls; 'Tis her's, the Queen who melted pearls Marc Antony to wheedle. Her bark, her banquets, all are fled; And Time, who cut her vital thread, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... transmute airy nothing into bank-note money, and then, by law, force its acceptance. The lone trader or landholder unsupported by a partnership with law could not fabricate money. But let trader and landholder band in a company, incorporate, then persuade, wheedle or bribe a certain entity called a legislature to grant them a certain bit of paper styled a charter, and lo! they were instantly transformed ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... gentleman might. Pschutt! a pox on all lechery says the dying man,—since it is now necessary to put that strapping yellow-haired trollop out of your mind, Simon Orts—yes, after all these years, to put her quite out of your mind. Faith, she might wheedle me now to her heart's content, and my pulse would never budge; for I must devote what trivial time there is to hoping they will kill me quickly. He ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... the President to wheedle Democrats into Supporting his Policy without giving them the Offices commented upon.—The ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... forecastle was his refuge; the place where he could be lazy; where he could wallow, and lie and eat—and curse the food he ate; where he could display his talents for shirking work, for cheating, for cadging; where he could find surely some one to wheedle and some one to bully—and where he would be paid for doing all this. They all knew him. Is there a spot on earth where such a man is unknown, an ominous survival testifying to the eternal fitness of ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... these things for a young lady) that I had some particular choice article that I was keeping for a lady that was a favourite of mine. Her Grace was in the shop the matter of a full hour and a half, trying to wheedle me out of a sight of this rare piece; and I, pretending not to know what her Grace would be after, but showing her thing after thing, to put it out of her head. But she was not so easily bubbled, and at last went away ill enough pleased. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... exactly the right way to wheedle his mother, and very soon persuaded her to allow them to start ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... chambers—that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer's that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow's mite. Well? What do you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O'Connor wife and five children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face and a large apron. Ladies' grey flannelette ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... suppin' his stiffshackle an smokin' a bit o' bacca, an tried by all th' means in his power to wheedle th' owd woman ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... the strength of Samson in her hair, and the sound of celestial music in her voice. She charms to kill the body and the soul at one stroke; she smiles to bite, she kisses to devour; in short, she would wheedle an angel, and make him deny his God. My son! my son! where is he at this hour? The flower of my life—a flower cut by this feminine needlecase as with scissors. Ha, lord! why have I been called? Who will give me ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... their supper in silence and went out, but Bidwell lingered to wheedle the mistress while she ate her own fill at the splotched and littered table. The kerosene-lamp stood close to her plate and brought out the glow of her cheek and deepened the blue of her eyes ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... had come for Alfieri and Mme. d'Albany; sooner by far than they expected, and sooner, we may think, than they deserved. Liberty and happiness, however, not in the face of the law. Charles Edward was still alive; but, pressed by King Gustavus III. of Sweden, whom he contrived to wheedle out of some most unnecessary money, he had consented to a legal separation from his fugitive wife; as a result of which the Countess of Albany, renouncing all money supplies from the Stuarts, and subsisting entirely upon a share of the two pensions, French and Papal, granted to her husband, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... Feefty-fir-rst Diveesion," he said in his richest Doric. "We had a rare time wi' bullies over there. A'm for free speech! Noo, listen tae me, you Cockney wheedle doodle. Let another cheep out o' yere trap an' the Captain there will fling ye oot o' this room as we did the Kayser oot ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... you tell me where she is?" he asked in his friendliest voice, and that would wheedle secrets from ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... more obstinate than himself, and also more callous, for when it became fatigued with hauling the water-barrel to and fro, it stopped at the foot of the slope near a corner of the garden, and refused to budge. Peegwish lashed it, but it did not feel—at all events, it did not care. He tried to wheedle it, but failed: he became abusive, and used bad language to the ox, but without success. He was in the height of his distress when Petawanaquat passed by with a load of firewood on his shoulder. The red man having been reconciled ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... of my force and avow thyself my thrall; for thou hast learned my severity unto him who showeth his hostility!" Thereupon the fox prostrated himself before the wolf, saying, "Allah lengthen thy life and mayst thou never cease to overthrow thy foes!" And he stinted not to fear the wolf and to wheedle him and dissemble with him. Now it came to pass that one day, the fox went to a vineyard and saw a breach in its walls; but he mistrusted it and said to himself, "Verily, for this breach there must be some ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... could be extracted from him. About the same time we find Raleigh, encouraged, it would appear, by the Queen, proposing to Lord Salisbury that he should be allowed to go to Guiana on an expedition for gold. It is pathetic to read the earnest phrases in which he tries to wheedle out of the cold Minister permission to set out westward once more across the ocean that he loved so much. He offers, lest he should be looked upon as a runagate, to leave his wife and children behind him as hostages; and the Queen and Lord Salisbury ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... quartered. "Cock laird," a small land holder who cultivates his estate himself. Copleen, to complain. Coup, to barter; also, to turn over. Crap, the produce of the ground. Crowdy, meal and milk mixed in a cold state. Cuittle, to wheedle, to curry favour. Daft, crazy. Daur, to dare. Daurna, dare not. Deil, the devil. "Deil gin," the devil may care if. Didna, did not. Dighting, separating, wiping. Ding, to knock. Dinna, disna, do not. Disjasked-looking, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... you jade, as the saying is, can any woman wheedle that is not young? your mother was useless at five-and-twenty. Not wheedle! would you make your mother a whore, and me a cuckold, as the saying is? I tell you, his silence confesses it, and his master spends his money so freely, and is so much a gentleman every manner of way, that he ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... piously pretend these are not days, For keeping Mistresses, and seeing Plays: Who says this Age a Reformation wants, When Betty Currer's Lovers all turns Saints? In vain, alas, I flatter, swear, and vow, You'll scarce do any thing for Charity now: Yet I am handsom still, still young and mad, Can wheedle, lye, dissemble, jilt—egad, As well and artfully as e'er I did; Yet not one Conquest can I gain or hope, No Prentice, not a Foreman of a Shop, So that I want extremely new Supplies; Of my last Coxcomb, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... the evil which may be done. Therefore the object which we should all pursue in the first instance is to throw off the old man of the sea, and not merely to get the better of him in parliament, but to cover him with so much discredit that he cannot wheedle another majority from the country. It does not signify whether we do this through Irish or Egyptian affairs, so long as we do it. Mr. Campion has shown us how seats are to be won. We want fifty or sixty men at least to do the same thing for us at ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... things go, I reckon our sale went pretty well. Just before closing time we held a rubbish auction, with Ginger in the chair. Ginger would make an absolute Napoleon among auctioneers. He can bully, lie, despair, wheedle and take you into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... bounty and, tradition had it, a consummate skill in poker. He was the moneyed man among the sergeants when the dashing relict of a brother non-commissioned officer set her widow's cap for him and won. It did not take many years for her to wheedle most of his money away; but there was no cessation to the demand, no apparent limit to the supply. Both were growing older, and now it became evident that Mrs. Clancy was the elder of the two, and that the artificiality of her ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... wheedle Lucas into painting at least all of the front of the house, but Lucas was not to be moved. Disappointed in that, Theodore brought home a pot of yellow paint when returning from his next expedition, and painted ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... begged Turpio not to sell her to Molo. He was obdurate, although Molo bid on up till he was offering a really fabulous price, though one well within his means. He could not credit that Turpio would not yield. When he was convinced that he could not wheedle him he lost his temper. Turpio told him that the negotiations were at an end and warned him not to return. Molo ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... solemnly, yet familiar; to wheedle jurors the better, he mixes himself with them, his "WE" embracing both judge and jury. I shall now quote actual language used in this very court, by ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... believe; but now tell me how comes it you are left out in the cold like this? I vow I did my best to wheedle the old aunt yonder to let you come in our train, but she is as hard as a rock when she chooses. When I get to Hillbrow there won't be two mistresses, I warrant. One of us will have to give in, and it won't be your humble servant! As I say I am sorry ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... under the impulse of true devotion. Already he sees the restoration of genuine divinity as his task; unfortunately the effusion is contained in a letter in which he instructs the faithful Batt as to how he should handle the Lady of Veere in order to wheedle money out of her. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... my dear! What a flattering creature you'll become, if you keep on as you've begun! How you'll wheedle the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... eleven-feet-six wheel-base was not considered. To wheedle Pong to the mouth of the Calle del Puerto had been a ticklish business, and I had berthed her deliberately with an eye to our departure for the city gate, rather than to the convenience of such other vehicles as might appear. Besides, for my brother-in-law to have essayed manoeuvres ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... prospect of parting. I think, in connection with this, Lady Hamilton's version of what passed between them when he was walking the "quarterdeck" in his garden may be true in substance, as he was still madly in love with her, and she knew how to wheedle him into a conversation and to use words that might serve a useful purpose if need be. Nor were her scruples so delicate as to prevent suitable additions being made to suit any ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... to unbuckle a bit. There'll be hell to pay when the other boys come back. A pretty wild-goose chase you've sent them on, too, with your tale about the old Jew's money-bags. What was the game? You seemed mighty anxious to wheedle us all out of the house; and you'd never get out of the village ...
— Rada - A Drama of War in One Act • Alfred Noyes

... this design, since Llewellyn was usually able to prove to them in advance that it would be fruitless and expensive, but the paths of Eastern capitals were strewn with his compromises, in Japanese yen, Chinese dollars, Indian rupees, for salaries which no amount of advertising could wheedle into the box-office. When the climax came, Llewellyn usually went to hospital and received the reporters of local papers in pathetic audience there, which counteracted the effect of the astounding ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... time?" asked Dr. Harlow, serving the golden scallop generously. "You have shown diplomacy in your choice of a dish, if I am the one you wish to wheedle." ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... Tog in the Torres Islands to Ureparapara in the Banks Group is a little over forty miles. But you must wheedle the yarn out of him. He's a bit sensitive of talking about it, on account of his at first being told he was a liar by several people. But Macleod, two traders who were passengers with us, and all the crew of the Aurore know the ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... into a room, and every feminine eye fills with sudden emotion. I wonder what it is. My nose is broken, and my chin sticks out like a handle. And men like me just as much as women do. It is inexplicable. True, I never say disagreeable things; and it is so natural to me to wheedle. I twist myself about them like a twining plant about a window. Women forgive me everything, and are glad to see me after years. But they are never wildly jealous. Perhaps I have never been really loved.... I don't know though—Lady Seeley loved me. There was an old lady at ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... of my money. First my daughter bathes me, anoints my feet, stoops to kiss me and, while she is calling me "her dearest father," fishes out my triobolus with her tongue;[74] then my little wife comes to wheedle me and brings a nice light cake; she sits beside me and entreats me in a thousand ways, "Do take this now; do have some more." All this delights me hugely, and I have no need to turn towards you or the steward to know when it shall ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... that sha'n't stop me: I'll come to—what's the name of your place in Ireland?—and see what likeness I can find to her poor father in this grand-daughter of mine, that you puffed so finely yesterday. And let me see whether she will wheedle me as finely as Mrs. Petito would. Don't get ready your marriage settlements, do you hear? till you have seen my will, which I shall sign at—what's the name of your place? Write it down there; there's pen and ink; and leave me, for the twinge is coming, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... of a young prinked up strumpet, to the artless sincerity of a plain, grave, and good wife, has given his desires aloose, and destroyed soul, body, family, and estate. But they are very favourable if they wheedle nobody into matrimony, but only make a present of a small live creature, no bigger than a bastard, to some of the family, no matter who gets it; when a child is born ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... the girl, and although the death dews were even then upon her forehead and she spoke between sobbing gasps of breath, there was a kind of defiance in her tone. "Doctor, you've been trying for days to wheedle summat out of me—you ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... objectionable, but nevertheless to be kept also at arm's length, is the far more numerous class of natives known in India as umedwars, who are always anxious to seize on to the coat tails of the Anglo-Indian official in order to heighten their own social status, and, if possible, to wheedle out of Government some of those minor titles or honorific distinctions to which Indian ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... When anybody tries to coax, cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with Grant, the General listens and—smokes. If you try to wheedle out of him his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him an imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if you praise him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the Presidency, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... did take that, and scampered off to its mother, crying out in such a pitiful voice, "Wheedle-wheedle-wheedle," that the heron forgot his ill-humour and burst out laughing, and felt quite sorry that he had given poor little Yellow-down such a cruel poke in its back with his ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... failure to learn from Clem the ingredients of his acceptable punch. This was not surprising, for Clem was either never able or never willing to tell how he made anything whatever. Of this punch Aunt Delia had been able to wheedle from him only that it contained "some little fixin's." Insistent questioning did develop, further, that "cold tea" was one of these; but cold tea did not make plain its recondite potencies—did not explain why a beverage so unassuming to the ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... aristocracy, some of them would do almost anything and say almost anything. But the Lords are those who give social bribes, and not those who take them. They are above corruption because they are the corruptors. They have no constituency to fear or wheedle; they have the best means of forming a disinterested and cool judgment of any class in the country. They have, too, leisure to form it. They have no occupations to distract them which are worth the name. Field sports are but playthings, though some ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... budding from a gnarled old trunk would afford a piquant contrast—has done so hundreds of times. Jehiel Prince undoubtedly was gnarled and old and tough; a charming granddaughter to cajole or wheedle him in the library, or to relax his indignant tension over young men during their summer attendance on swing or hammock, would have her uses. Yet a swing or a hammock would suggest, rather than the bleak stateliness of Jehiel's urban environment, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... these Scaramouches, how they know to wheedle the poor People! How many Days did you continue in that holy College ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... other peoples have enjoyed, the German Reich would today be mistress of the globe. World history would have taken another course, and no one can tell whether in this way that might not have been attained which so many deluded pacifists are hoping today to wheedle by moaning and whining: a peace supported not by the palm branches of tearful pacifistic female mourners but founded by the victorious sword of a master race [Herrenvolk] which places the world in the service of ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various

... we made for these at once; and there was a lot of chaffering and bargaining between our fellows and the negresses, who were all laughing and showing their white teeth, trying their best to wheedle the 'man-o'-war buckras' to buy their luscious wares at double the price, probably, such would fetch in open market ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... all you men are! I'd burn you all in an oven; I'd cut you in pieces. If any one of you was dying I'd spit in his mouth, and not pity him a bit. Mean skunks! You wheedle and wheedle, you wag your tails like cringing dogs, and we fools give ourselves up to you, and it's all up with us! Immediately you trample ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... can wheedle him before the camera, you'll be interested in making a picture of him that Ellen and I shall want to frame and ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... predicted, was great. It taxed the powers of the women to their utmost to keep up the supply. Orders poured in, orders were repeated; customers called to assure Mrs. Day that while she lived to do it for them they would never be bothered to make the stuff again. Others came with the intention to wheedle the receipt from the shop-woman. Such was the unbusiness-like disposition of the poor creature, she would at once have surrendered it, had the prescription been hers to give. But George Boult, knowing with whom he had to deal, had laid an embargo on ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... see what he is? He is one of those men whose one ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are women to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite latent feelings which, had it not been for him, would never have been developed ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... cruel. Leave me my Frenchman! Say you won't wheedle Edouard by quoting the classics of his native tongue! Poor me! Here have I been warming a ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... wee faut they whiles lay to me, I like the lasses—Gude forgie me! For monie a plack they wheedle frae me, At dance or fair; May be some ither thing they gie me ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... which there is allowed to be something very engaging. It's a remarkable thing, and a testimony to the love with which our nation is regarded, that this address scarce ever fails in a handsome fellow. I cannot tell how often I have seen a private soldier escape the horse, or a beggar wheedle out a good alms, by a touch of the brogue. And, indeed, as soon as the Albanian had laughed at me I was pretty much at rest. Even then, however, he made many conditions, and—for one thing—took away our arms, before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Charm, amulet, talisman. Charm, enchant, fascinate, captivate, enrapture, bewitch, infatuate, enamor. Cheat, defraud, swindle, dupe. Choke, strangle, suffocate, stifle, throttle. Choose, pick, select, cull, elect. Coax, wheedle, cajole, tweedle, persuade, inveigle. Color, hue, shade, tint, tinge, tincture. Combine, unite, consolidate, merge, amalgamate, weld, incorporate, confederate. Comfort, console, solace. Complain, grumble, growl, murmur, repine, whine, croak. Confirmed, habitual, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... a lucky shot, and, upon my word, I really do believe that I began to wheedle him, Whether I did, or whether I did not, we had the car upon the road in ten minutes, and were off for Dover before a quarter of an hour had passed. Previous to that I had slipped into the inn on the pretence of leaving my coat, and had left a letter for Miss Dolly ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton

... faut they whiles lay to me, I like the lasses—Gude forgie me! For mony a plack they wheedle frae me At dance or fair; Maybe some ither thing they gie ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... had a way with him, and ways and ways. He, who was sheer bladed steel in the imperious flashing of his will, could swashbuckle and bully like any over-seas roisterer, or wheedle as wickedly winningly as the first woman out of Eden or the last woman of that descent. When Cocky, balanced on one leg, the other leg in the air as the foot of it held the scruff of Michael's neck, leaned to Michael's ear and wheedled, Michael could ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... road, dreary lay the town, Lights out and never a glint o' moon: Weary lay the stragglers, half a thousand down, Sad sighed the weary big Dragoon. "Oh! if I'd a drum here to make them take the road again, Oh! if I'd a fife to wheedle, Come, boys, come! You that mean to fight it out, wake and take your load again, Fall in! Fall in! Follow ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... proportion, including most of the undesirable class, does not come here of its own initiative, but because of the activity of the agents of the great transportation companies. These agents are distributed throughout Europe, and by the offer of all kinds of inducements they wheedle and cajole many immigrants, often against their best interest, to come here. The most serious obstacle we have to encounter in the effort to secure a proper regulation of the immigration to these shores arises from the determined ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... at the last village in Unyambewa. The early morning before starting was wasted by the pagazis "striking" for more cloth, and refusing to move unless I complied with their demand. I peremptorily refused, and they then tried to wheedle me out of beads. In demanding cloth, they pretended that they were suffering from the chilling cold of night—a pretence too absurd to merit even a civil reply. I then explained to my head men that I would rather ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... Ha! who comes yonder? The Eton chap who wheedled me into lending him my best hunter last year, and was the ruination of him; but that must be paid for, wheedle or no wheedle; and, for the matter of wheedling, I'd stake this here Mr. Wheeler, that is making up to me, do you see, against e'er a boy, or hobbledehoy, in all Eton, London, or Christendom, let the other be who ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... are," she exclaimed, "a party of vagabond stage-players running away from Cork, where you haven't paid your bills, and going to wheedle the people at Limerick out of ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... and rode over to Wheeler, for he could no longer wheedle the man of law over to Highmore, and I will very briefly ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... the German' of course). The conversazione-women salute each other calling each other 'My dear Lady Ann' and 'My dear good Eliza,' and hating each other, as women hate who give parties on Wednesdays and Fridays. With inexpressible pain dear good Eliza sees Ann go up and coax and wheedle Abou Gosh, who has just arrived from Syria, and beg him to ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... merchant, who put in contributions in hard cash. You have, at every meeting you hold, to each take turn and pay the piper; but, as your funds are not sufficient, you've invented this plan to come and inveigle me into your club, in order to wheedle money out of me! This must be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... to say that vain must be all attempts to wheedle his secret from him, and yet again to ask irritably why Tommy was not coming out to hear all about it. Then did Tommy desert Elspeth, and on the stair Shovel showed him a yellow card with this printed ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... had believed that if you had a stitch in your side, or a bad pain anywhere, it came from a worm in the marrow of your bones, which was eating you up, and that the only way to get rid of that worm was to put a knife, or an arrow-head, or some other piece of metal to the sore place, and then wheedle the worm out on to the blade by saying a charm. And this was the charm which Bodo's heathen ancestors had always said and which Bodo went on saying when little Wido had a pain: 'Come out, worm, with nine little worms, out from the marrow into the bone, from the bone into ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... discussed that his listener was forced to follow him. It was only in such moments of artistic discussion that his real soul floated up to the surface, and he, as it were, achieved himself. He knew, too, how to play with his listener, to wheedle and beguile him, for after a particularly aggressive phrase he would drop into a minor key, and his criticism would suddenly become serious and illuminative. To him "Parsifal" was a fresco, a decoration painted by a man whose true genius ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... box came one day too soon and, like the child that I am transformed into, I resorted to tears in order to wheedle Carlton into permitting me to open it. The little things are wonderful and the discretion of your love is more so. Each little article is an expression of your faultless friendship, for losing which, not even ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... Paterson, has long ago made plain. It is not a question of the wealth of England, but a question of the confidence of the people in the throne. There is money in abundance in England. It is the province of my Lord Chancellor to wheedle it out of those coffers where it is concealed and place it before the uses of the king. Gentlemen, it is confidence that we need. There will be no trouble to secure loans of money in this rich land, but the taxes ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... of spending money; for although their father was strongly opposed to the idea of making any child of his a definite allowance, he allowed them to keep the change whenever they executed small commissions for him, and to wheedle from him stray quarter and half dollars. Lydia had only to watch for the favourable moment to get whatever she asked, and with Leonard he was especially generous. Martie knew that she could save, if she determined to do so. She imagined ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... the captain. "I'll have them dressed up and presented to Latrobe; he is an old courtier, and can wheedle the devil with his tongue. When we reach the city, see that they are clothed in decent suits, and are ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... yo knoaw about it," replied Jennet. "Alizon is os good as she's protty, and dunna yo think to wheedle me into sayin' out agen her, fo' yo winna do it. Ey'd dee rayther than harm a ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... is not going to be up there much longer, John.' She sits on the arm of his chair, so openly to wheedle him that it is not worth his while to smile. Her voice is tremulous; she is a woman who can conceal nothing. 'You will be nice to ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie



Words linked to "Wheedle" :   bully, cajole, soft-soap, swagger, inveigle, persuade, sweet-talk, wheedling



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