BEGUILE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Beguile

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/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.

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Etymology of 'Beguile'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books

... not so well acquainted, but he was a fine poet. Keats—John Keats, sir—he was a very fine poet." With such references, such trivial criticism, such loving parade of his own knowledge, he would beguile the road, striding forward up-hill, his staff now clapped to the ribs of his deep, resonant chest, now swinging in the air with the remembered jauntiness of the private soldier; and all the while his toes looking out of his boots, and his shirt looking out of his elbows, and death ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... some fair inquirer bid me say, What tasks, what sports beguile the gownsman's day. The College, in Blackwood's ...

— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... lumpish fellows with scant voice in the government of their common enterprise, had ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated them-selves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the violin; with the persistent, untimely ...

— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... Kohlhaas had put him. This good-for-nothing fellow called himself a vicegerent of Kohlhaas, partly to inspire with fear the officers of the law who were after him, and partly, by the use of familiar methods, to beguile the country people into participating in his rascalities. With a cleverness which he had learned from his master, he had it noised abroad that the amnesty had not been kept in the case of several men who had quietly ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... still exult to hail the present joy, Thine be the boon that comes unearn'd by toil; No forward vain desire thy bliss annoy, No flattering hope thy longing hours beguile. ...

— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

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