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

He’s always looking to learn something, whether it’s from someone or just the cracks in their armor or the information he can wheedle out of somebody.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 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

The more other people sit stone-faced, the more I turn into a clown, trying to wheedle just little bit of encouraging energy back from them.

From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2022

But like all parents—all adults—they didn’t fight and wheedle for their turn.

From "The Giver" by Lois Lowry

The man, 56-year-old Wu Zhiqing, complains about the quality of the mushrooms; she wheedles back in response.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026

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

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

Then he had the woman hand her phone to a visiting technician and wheedled the phone number of the department head out him.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 26, 2022

The part of Orlean who, as a child, wheedled her pet-averse mother into adopting a dog is never too distant from the scrutinizing reporter.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 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

So Nok's mother wheedled and cut deals with her society friends, and by a sheer miracle, she landed Nok's father an even better gig: Chief Law Commissioner.

From "A Wish in the Dark" by Christina Soontornvat

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

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

When your landline and cell phone were free from scam artists selling something, threatening you with arrest, wheedling to extract a credit-card number?

From Washington Times ● Sep. 4, 2019

“Well, Barbarina,” he began in his soft, wheedling voice, “anything for the old fellow today?”

From "Mary Poppins" by P. L. Travers