wheedle

A mosquito spots the eminent man and zooms over to wheedle in his ear, but Bashō remains immobile.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025

The arsonists wheedle their way into his house with a combination of servile pleading, subtle bullying and appeals to Biedermann’s moral vanity.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 14, 2022

And by clicking on that link, you’ll either download malware onto your device or be taken to a site that tries to wheedle sensitive personal information out of you.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 22, 2022

Leibovich is, more subtly, a brilliant interviewer able to wheedle not-quite-admissions from his subjects, who give him all the access in the world.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2022

When the agent continued to wheedle her, Mama hung up on her.

From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser

For one thing, “very” is a fraud, masquerading as a strengthener when it merely wheedles and pleads.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 12, 2022

“At least we tried to make a movie. They can’t judge us for that,” wheedles director Darren at the end of the film, incorrectly.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2022

He jokes and wheedles and begs and tells stories and pledges his troth.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 3, 2019

THE young woman with the microphone cajoles, hectors and wheedles customers with the breathless enthusiasm of a livestock auctioneer at a county fair.

From Economist ● Jul. 18, 2017

But once in a while, Prim wheedles one out of me.

From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

Ask any nerd who wheedled her parents for a little more cash to buy books: What you get from Scholastic is what your parents are willing to buy you.

From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2023

In 1855, Davis wheedled about $20,000 out of Congress, enough for a trip to the Mideast to buy 30-some camels and dromedaries and hire “cameleers.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2021

And so, in a Rite Aid staff bathroom I’d wheedled my way into by citing my pregnancy, I discovered that my trickle of blood had turned into a torrent.

From Slate ● Oct. 2, 2020

At 16, he wheedled his way onto the staff of a local newspaper.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2018

“Everyone says you’re too stupid, but I don’t believe it. Please, Matt,” she wheedled.

From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer

Scientists had not yet discovered vitamins, so families did not fret about dietary “balance,” and there seems to have been little or none of the parental wheedling common today.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

“Part Two” shows Durst wheedling his friends to do his bidding from behind bars and expecting nothing less than absolute allegiance.

From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2024

Hunter Biden is such a stingy, wheedling, dishonest, self-serving dirtbag that even after the court-ordered paternity test proved the child was his, he refuses to acknowledge his own biological daughter.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 27, 2023

So she enlisted Yala, at the time still an undergrad, who set out on the laborious door-to-door task of wheedling for access to anonymous mammograms.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2021

In her dealings with him she was very bossy and businesslike, treating him in much the same way she handled her kindergarten pupils; he responded in kind, alternately wheedling, affectionate, or sulky.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt