BEGUILE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Beguile

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/bɪgˈaɪl/ Listen

verb

Beguile v. t. (past & past part. beguiled; pres. part. beguiling)

To delude by guile, artifice, or craft; to deceive or impose on, as by a false statement; to lure. "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

To elude, or evade by craft; to foil. (Obs.) "When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage."

To cause the time of to pass without notice; to relieve the tedium or weariness of; to while away; to divert. "Ballads... to beguile his incessant wayfaring."

Synonyms: To delude; deceive; cheat; insnare; mislead; amuse; divert; entertain.

See images of 'Beguile'

Etymology of 'Beguile'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books

... repeated trials, has proved to me that the only way of getting sitters who persist in assuming a set look to resume their habitual expression, is to lead them into talking about some subject in which they are greatly interested. If I can only beguile them into speaking earnestly, no matter on what topic, I am sure of recovering their natural expression; sure of seeing all the little precious everyday peculiarities of the man or woman peep out, one after another, quite unawares. The long, ...

— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... mainland of New Guinea, while the younger fashioned the islands and the sea. When the natives first saw a steamer on the horizon they thought it was Nemunemu's ship, and the smoke at the funnel they took to be the tobacco-smoke which he puffed to beguile the tedium of the voyage.[397] They are also great believers in magic and witchcraft, and cases of sickness and death, which are not attributed to the malignity of ghosts and spirits, are almost invariably set down ...

— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... In the light of its consequences it was probably the most momentous inspiration that he ever had. "I know what I'll do," he said. "I'll use a long, long stick that'll reach way, way, way out." And he glanced about him in quest of a "long, long stick" with which to beguile the bashful eels. His inquiring eye lit upon one of the long clothes-line supporters which Townsend had driven into the river bottom to help ...

— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... I been winging Toward vaporous heights which beckon and beguile I sink back, saddened to my inmost mind; Even as I list a-dream that mother singing The poesy of sweet tone, and sadden, while Her voice is cast in troubled wake behind The keel of her keen spirit. Thou art ...

— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson

... world. The Cafe de l'Enfers opens its demoniac mouth to swallow ten minutes' audiences and vomit them forth again, amused or bored, as the case may be, by the delusions provided in the interior, whilst other questionable resorts shout forth their attractions and seek to beguile a certain number of sous from ...

— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

More quotes...