wheedle
Americanverb (used with object)
-
wheedles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wheedled,
past participle, past
-
wheedling
present participle
-
to endeavor to influence (a person) by smooth, flattering, or beguiling words or acts.
We wheedled him incessantly, but he would not consent.
-
to persuade (a person) by such words or acts.
She wheedled him into going with her.
-
to obtain (something) by artful persuasions.
I wheedled a new car out of my father.
verb (used without object)
-
wheedles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
wheedled,
past participle, past
-
wheedling
present participle
verb
-
to persuade or try to persuade (someone) by coaxing words, flattery, etc
-
(tr) to obtain by coaxing and flattery
she wheedled some money out of her father
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
wheedlesimple
-
wheedlessimple
-
have wheedledperfect
-
has wheedledperfect
-
am wheedlingprogressive
-
are wheedlingprogressive
-
is wheedlingprogressive
-
have been wheedlingperfect progressive
-
has been wheedlingperfect progressive
Past
-
wheedledsimple
-
had wheedledperfect
-
was wheedlingprogressive
-
were wheedlingprogressive
-
had been wheedlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wheedle
First recorded in 1655–65; origin uncertain
Explanation
To wheedle is to sweet talk, or flatter someone in the hopes of getting something in return. You might try to wheedle a meter maid into not giving you a parking ticket. Good luck with that. If you want your parents to do something for you that they don’t want to do, you may have to wheedle them with breakfast in bed and a shower of compliments in order to get what you want. To wheedle someone is to “charm” that person, though it’s a little more on the “suck up to” side than it is charming. The teacher’s pet might try to wheedle her way into a better grade.
Vocabulary lists containing wheedle
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A mosquito spots the eminent man and zooms over to wheedle in his ear, but Bashō remains immobile.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
He’s always looking to learn something, whether it’s from someone or just the cracks in their armor or the information he can wheedle out of somebody.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2025
The arsonists wheedle their way into his house with a combination of servile pleading, subtle bullying and appeals to Biedermann’s moral vanity.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
Leibovich is, more subtly, a brilliant interviewer able to wheedle not-quite-admissions from his subjects, who give him all the access in the world.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2022
He, Harry, had had too much experience of trying to wheedle information out of reluctant people not to recognize a master at work.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
“Because of your big career that’s so much bigger than mine?” wheedles her petulant husband.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2022
“At least we tried to make a movie. They can’t judge us for that,” wheedles director Darren at the end of the film, incorrectly.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2022
THE young woman with the microphone cajoles, hectors and wheedles customers with the breathless enthusiasm of a livestock auctioneer at a county fair.
From Economist ● Jul. 18, 2017
Wave your hands over and around two aerials emanating from a black box and hear all pitches of electronic wheedles.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 26, 2017
But the brook always whines and wheedles: “Don’t go, Ida B, don’t go. Nobody’s callin’ and they can wait, anyway.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
Ask any nerd who wheedled her parents for a little more cash to buy books: What you get from Scholastic is what your parents are willing to buy you.
From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2023
The part of Orlean who, as a child, wheedled her pet-averse mother into adopting a dog is never too distant from the scrutinizing reporter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2021
Equipped with two $4,000 trackers — which he’d wheedled a company into donating — Clerkin went out with a fishing captain who said he’d seen megamouths roaming.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 11, 2021
And so, in a Rite Aid staff bathroom I’d wheedled my way into by citing my pregnancy, I discovered that my trickle of blood had turned into a torrent.
From Slate ● Oct. 2, 2020
“Come on,” wheedled his father with a smile, “there must be something.”
From "Shooting Kabul" by N. H. Senzai
Scientists had not yet discovered vitamins, so families did not fret about dietary “balance,” and there seems to have been little or none of the parental wheedling common today.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
“Part Two” shows Durst wheedling his friends to do his bidding from behind bars and expecting nothing less than absolute allegiance.
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2024
Yet Penn gives him a vivid, wheedling desperation that’s weirdly moving, and the younger Penn has clearly inherited the emotional expressiveness of her mother, Robin Wright.
From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2021
Finally, bravo to Seattle Opera’s indispensable Jonathan Dean, who translates and writes the supertitles projected above the stage, for having one of the wheedling stepsisters calling her prey “Princykins.”
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 21, 2019
“Come, my pretty—” But Ellen got no further with her wheedling.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
