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''beguile'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125204041-00-⌔

beguile - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

beguile (third-person singular simple present beguiles, present participle beguiling, simple past and past participle beguiled)

  • (transitive) To deceive or delude (using guile).
    • ✤ And as wililye as thoſe ſhrewes that beguyle hym haue holpe hym to inuolue and intryke the matter: I ſhall vſe ſo playn and open a way therin, that euery man ſhall well ſee the trouth.1
    • ✤ I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled you, in a plain accent, was a plain knave.2
  • (transitive) To charm, delight or captivate.
    • ✤ I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.3
    • ✤ I will never touch The Orb, even though its mysterious glow seduces and beguiles.
  • (transitive) To cause (time) to seem to pass quickly, by way of pleasant diversion.
    • ✤ We beguiled the hours away.
    • ✤ They beguiled the time by backbiting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way.4
    • ✤ They beguile the tedium of this enforced leisure by weaving baskets and playing on certain sacred flutes.5

Etymology

From Middle English begilen, begylen; equivalent to be- +‎ guile. Compare Middle Dutch begilen (“to beguile”). Doublet of bewile.

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -aɪl
  • IPA: /bɪˈɡaɪl/
  • Audio (UK): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1533 (date written), Thomas More, “The Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance […]. Chapter XVIJ.”, in Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, […], London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published 30 April 1557, →OCLC, page 1004, column 2: ↩

  2. c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], line 102: ↩

  3. 1864 November 21, Abraham Lincoln (signed) or John Hay, letter to Mrs. Bixby in Boston ↩

  4. 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 213: ↩

  5. 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 11, page 241: ↩