as in cajoling
to get (someone) to do something by gentle urging, special attention, or flattery
wheedled him into doing their work for them
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Recent Examples of wheedling
Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
Verb
Checkers can see your shortcuts, your reportorial wheedling, your blind spots.
—Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wheedling
Verb
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But coaxing nematodes is tricky and time-consuming, so Ortega-Jiménez collaborated with Ranjiangshang Ran, a postdoc studying fluid mechanics at Emory University, who ran computer simulations of thousands more jump trajectories.—
Cody Cottier,
Scientific American,
23 Oct. 2025
-
Amidst the pandemic, sitting down at my machine was one reliable way of coaxing order from chaos.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
However, so far, WBD has turned down the Ellison entreaties.—
Brian Stelter,
CNN Money,
23 Oct. 2025
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But top Democrats appear to be rejecting Thune’s entreaty.—
Kevin Breuninger,
CNBC,
20 Oct. 2025
Noun
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But Putin cannot have needed much persuading to agree to a formal invitation to the US to have the bilateral meeting his team have long held out as the way towards peace in Ukraine.—
Nick Paton Walsh,
CNN Money,
9 Aug. 2025
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In the framework of conversational intelligence, most workplace communication falls into Level 1 (telling) or Level 2 (persuading).—
Susan Curtin,
Forbes.com,
5 Aug. 2025
Noun
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However, the pavilion’s visitors rarely complied with this on-screen exhortation, leaving the nearby microphones unused.—
Joanna Warsza,
Artforum,
1 Oct. 2025
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Indeed, there were few exhortations from the roster of speakers at Kirk’s memorial to reduce the temperature in American politics or show more tolerance for all sides, right, left and center.—
David M. Drucker,
Twin Cities,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The material contained on this site is intended to inform, entertain and educate the reader and in no way represents an inducement to gamble legally or illegally or any sort of professional advice.—
Matthew Glowicki,
Louisville Courier Journal,
22 Oct. 2025
-
The material contained on this site is intended to inform, entertain and educate the reader and in no way represents an inducement to gamble legally or illegally or any sort of professional advice.—
Jacob Camenker,
USA Today,
19 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Impressed by the senator’s blandishments, the egoistic journalist argues military strategy and then faces a moment of conscience.—
Armond White,
National Review,
17 May 2023
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People want to hear blandishments about engagement and infrastructure.—
Rory Smith,
New York Times,
14 Apr. 2023
Noun
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In this newest cover-up, Clooney repeats his film’s original failing — its nostalgic salute to the power of electronic media suasion.—
Armond White,
National Review,
30 Apr. 2025
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Finally, the original Concert vision embraced formal deliberation and moral suasion as the key mechanism of collaborative foreign policy.—
Stacie E. Goddard,
Foreign Affairs,
22 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Wheedling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wheedling. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
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