wheedle

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”).

More likely, 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.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈʍiː.dəl/ (without the wine-whine merger)
• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈwiː.dəl/ (with the wine-whine merger)

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• Rhymes: -iːdəl

wheedle (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.
   • 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer; Nevill Coghill, transl., “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, in 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.

   I’d like one of those, too, if you can wheedle him into telling you where he got it.

2. (transitive) To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.
   • 1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 228728146, Act III, scene xviii, page 51:

     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; [...]

• wheedler
• wheedling
• wheedlesome

wheedle (plural wheedles)

1. (archaic) A coaxing person.

• wheeled