wheedle

Give McCarthy his due: All that butt smooching worked, kind of, allowing him to wheedle his way into his dream job for 11 not-so-glorious months.

The novel opens as she tries to convince the wealthy Hong Kong Wongs to invest in the dilapidated local community center — and to wheedle out of them a substantial finder’s fee to which she has, at best, a tenuous claim.

And he tried to wheedle his White House counsel into firing Mueller.

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

To do so, he said, “I’ve had to shove, push, cajole, persuade, wheedle, exaggerate, manipulate, flatter, be obnoxious, occasionally lie, and always sell.”