Wheedle vs Coax - What's the difference?
wheedle | coax |
To cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery.
* 1977 , ("The Wife of Bath's Tale"), Penguin Classics, p. 290:
To obtain by flattery, guile, or trickery.
* Congreve
(obsolete) To fondle, kid, pet, tease.
To wheedle, persuade (a person, organisation, animal etc.) gradually or by use of flattery to do something.
* , chapter=6
, title= * 12 July 2012 , Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift
To carefully manipulate into a particular desired state, situation or position.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
, title= (obsolete) A simpleton; a dupe.
Coax is a synonym of wheedle.
As verbs the difference between wheedle and coax
is that wheedle is to cajole or attempt to persuade by flattery while coax is to fondle, kid, pet, tease.As a noun coax is
a simpleton; a dupe.wheedle
English
Verb
and (intransitive)- Though he had beaten me in every bone / He still could wheedle me to love.
- I'd like one of those, too, if you can wheedle him into telling you where he got it.
- A deed of settlement of the best part of her estate, which I wheedled out of her.
Anagrams
*coax
English
Etymology 1
originally (1586) in the slang phrase to make a coax of , from earlier noun coax, cox, cokes "fool, simpleton", itself of obscure origin, perhaps related to cock (male bird, pert boy). The modern spelling is from 1706.Verb
Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=She was so mad she wouldn't speak to me for quite a spell, but at last I coaxed her into going up to Miss Emmeline's room and fetching down a tintype of the missing Deacon man.}}
- On paper, Continental Drift boasts a jaw-dropping voice cast, including but not limited to Jennifer Lopez, Patrick Stewart, Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Nicki Minaj, Drake, and Alan Tudyk. But in practice, the overstuffed ensemble leaves the cast no room to distinguish themselves, and directors Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier don’t seem interested in coaxing performances that might render their money stars less identifiable.
Geothermal Energy, volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame.}}
Synonyms
* (persuade gradually) cajole, persuade, wheedle * (manipulate carefully into position) easeNoun
(es)- (Beaumont and Fletcher)