wheedle

That should shut down whoever is trying to wheedle you into gimmicky strategies, or chasing the returns of recently hot assets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026

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

Over three gripping seasons, HBO’s “Succession” has followed ruthless members of the Roy family as they wheedle and extort their way to a place atop the media empire they feel entitled to.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2021

The abiding mystery is why Dale Carnegie didn’t wheedle himself a higher spot than No. 8.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 11, 2020

So Voldemort had managed to wheedle the location of the lost diadem out of the Gray Lady.

From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

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

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

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 3, 2019

But the brook always whines and wheedles: “Don’t go, Ida B, don’t go. Nobody’s callin’ and they can wait, anyway.

From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan

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

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

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

From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2018

"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

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

Finally, bravo to Seattle Opera’s indispensable Jonathan Dean, who translates and writes the supertitles projected above the stage, for having one of the wheedling stepsisters calling her prey “Princykins.”

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 21, 2019

Their voices are wheedling and false; I can tell they don’t mean it, each one thinks her own lady on her own page is good.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood