intrigue

• entrigue

Borrowed from French intrigue, from Italian intricare, from Latin intrīcō (“I entangle, perplex, embarrass”). Doublet of intricate.

• (noun) enPR: ĭn'trēg, IPA^(key): /ˈɪntɹiːɡ/

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• (verb) enPR: ĭntrēg', IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtɹiːɡ/

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• Rhymes: -iːɡ

intrigue (countable and uncountable, plural intrigues)

1. A complicated or clandestine plot or scheme intended to effect some purpose by secret artifice; conspiracy; stratagem.
   • 1858–1865, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Chapman and Hall, […], OCLC 156109991:

     […] lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic and foreign […]

2. The plot of a play, poem or romance; the series of complications in which a writer involves their imaginary characters.
3. Clandestine intercourse between persons; illicit intimacy; a liaison or affair.
   • 1976, John Harold Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration (page 245)

     In 1679 and 1680 there were persistent rumors of an intrigue between Mary, Lady Grey, and the Duke of Monmouth.

intrigue (third-person singular simple present intrigues, present participle intriguing, simple past and past participle intrigued)

1. (intransitive) To conceive or carry out a secret plan intended to harm; to form a plot or scheme.
2. (transitive) To arouse the interest of; to fascinate.
   • 2012 March 1, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, page 106:

     These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story. And, on top of all that, they are ornaments; they entice and intrigue and sometimes delight.

3. (intransitive) To have clandestine or illicit intercourse.
4. (transitive) To fill with artifice and duplicity; to complicate.
   • c. 1681, John Scott, The Christian Life from its beginning to its Consummation in Glory […]

     How doth it [sin] perplex and intrigue the whole course of your lives!

• intricacy
• intricate
• intriguer
• intriguery
• intriguing
• intriguingly

• intrigue in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• intrigue in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.tʁiɡ/

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intrigue f (plural intrigues)

1. intrigue (all senses)

intrigue

1. inflection of intriguer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “intrigue”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

intrigue

1. inflection of intrigar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

intrigue

1. inflection of intrigar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative