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

Even as ex-mayor, it tickled Dick that he could wheedle an author into joining us.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2023

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

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

Over the family’s meager supper, he and his father talked about the Durham Bulls’ latest victory and C.P. managed to wheedle a promise from his father to take him to the next ball game.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

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

“Because of your big career that’s so much bigger than mine?” wheedles her petulant husband.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 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

His father, less a bully but now a user, had wheedled his way onto the set of “Rocky” and embarrassed him.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

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

A Los Angeles Times columnist supposedly wheedled the songwriters who wrote “Que Sera, Sera” and the “Bonanza” theme into composing it.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2021

"She wasn't hungry," Sansa said, knowing full well that her sister had probably stolen down to the kitchen hours ago and wheedled a breakfast out of some cook's boy.

From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin

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

Plainly skeptical but unwilling to engage in a colloquy with a wheedling Teller, Fermi pleaded that he was too tired from the flight to give him a hearing, much less a commitment.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik