(v. t.) The act or practice of flattering; the act of pleasing by artiful commendation or compliments; adulation; false, insincere, or excessive praise.
Example Sentences:
(1) But when I started turning up at strategy meetings at 6.45am each day in Millbank Tower, key planners such as Robin Cook and Patricia Hewitt took to going into corridors and lowering their voices, making it obvious that they disapproved of my presence, which they regarded as proof of Kinnock’s fatal susceptibility to flattery.
(2) For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.” The Saudis read Trump accurately from the time he took office – they understood that he craved flattery and respect.
(3) That's because at the root of this pro-censorship case is self-flattery: the idea that one is so intrinsically Good and Noble and Elevated that one is incapable of hatred: only those warped people over there, those benighted souls, are plagued with such poison.
(4) Asked about the BBC's new venture, Ed O'Keefe, editor-in-chief of NowThis News, said: "We're blushing – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.
(5) They say that imitation is the best form of flattery.
(6) Arab leaders, especially the oil-rich monarchs, are used to flattery since they live with it every day.
(7) Read more Hunt didn’t pick this fight , but he’s deploying the strategy of every beleaguered health secretary since Aneurin Bevan: threats, flattery, promises and pledges.
(8) Even his exaggerated politeness and flattery comes across as either patronising or false.
(9) You could have been a movie star,” says Stone, looking at the screen and playing the flattery card.
(10) I think one has to be careful not to succumb to flattery.” Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, faced several questions pertaining to Trump’s appearance at the foreign policy town hall.
(11) This one is said to have belonged to a disciple, the painter Sir Peter Lely, who lavished equal flattery on the court of Charles II.
(12) In April, Minecraft received the priceless flattery of a parody on The Simpsons .
(13) One of the interesting things about Head of State is how comfortable Marr is with the ways in which information can be extracted – by journalists from politicians, by politicians from journalists, by power-brokers from each other – with a mix of flattery and veiled threat, long memories and manipulation.
(14) Asked what he thought of Sky's new Saturday schedule, which will segue from its Football League lunchtime match, to Soccer Saturday, to its new regular teatime live Premier League game and then Football First in front of a studio audience, Watson said: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
(15) The word from Fleet: 'I don't see Theresa May as another backstabber' Read more You might cling to the butler’s mole theory even as you worry that your hopes are loosening your grip on reality: the powerful faction that wanted to remain, and whispered flattery and enticements in Gove’s ear, has cleared the field of Johnson, the other side’s most powerful contender, and eased one of its own into place as PM.
(16) The negative view is the depressing capacity of right-thinking media representatives to tame "extremists", showing that everyone, even the most eccentric dissidents, are susceptible to flattery, inclusion and the kindness of power.
(17) Supervisors are alerted to hostile-dependent strategies, such as seductive flattery, that serve immediate ego-protective needs but ultimately block the attainment of fuller professional functioning.
(18) The immediate crisis can be traced back directly to Trump’s first trip abroad as president, to Riyadh on 20 May , when he was feted and showered with flattery.
(19) The Barcelona president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, continued his club’s flattery of Suárez on Wednesday when praising the forward for publicly apologising for biting the Italy defender despite his initial claim to Fifa that he fell into Chiellini teeth-first.
(20) Nobody has ever been as good as Jonathan Ross at straddling this funny-fawning axis, because it is nearly impossible (flattery has to be sincere; jokes have to be not sincere.
Wheedle
Definition:
(v. t.) To entice by soft words; to cajole; to flatter; to coax.
(v. t.) To grain, or get away, by flattery.
(v. i.) To flatter; to coax; to cajole.
Example Sentences:
(1) Still, there's an upside to 007's monogamy, and it may just explain how this much-maligned film has wheedled its way so irrevocably into my affections: uniquely in the world of Bond, it allows a vein of romantic adventure to develop that's real, not illusory.
(2) Pleading, shouting, wheedling, cajoling: none made any difference whatsoever.
(3) At the risk of being a complete bore …” he wheedles to John Reid, then the health secretary.
(4) Bird, convinced he wanted to be a writer and performer, had been quietly wheedling his school to teach drama at A-level.
(5) Netanyahu should be wooed and wheedled, coaxed and cajoled.
(6) He is terribly afraid of seeming self-satisfied, and is trying to wheedle out of the photographer a promise that he won't make him look pleased with himself.
(7) Labour and Tory alike may wheedle, protest and whinge.
(8) In a cable dated August 2004 titled "Alleged North Korean involvement in missile assembly and underground facility construction in Burma", one of the embassy staff wheedled information from an officer during a visit to Rangoon .
(9) It has heard wheedling from France's prime minister: "We will do everything to get [the triple A] back."
(10) The fact that he privately bombarded ministers with wheedling letters, contrary to his constitutional position, was an open secret but the government fought to keep the details under wraps.
(11) He's nuts – he should be wheedling with me; all a photographer can work with is a gallery of expressions, and after 37 years of no success at all, I don't think he has the facial musculature for smug.
(12) He wheedled a few things out of me - that was part of the fun.
(13) Kadyrov's response was characteristically wheedling.
(14) In one respect, America’s aeronautical myth has to wheedle its way around a flagrant contradiction: Air Force One carries the commander-in-chief, but he is not in command of the plane.
(15) Parker, meanwhile, had wheedled $50,000 from investors, and the pair moved to California.
(16) On stage, it had added significantly to his air of menace and deceit; he was treating the beaming Mrs W with wheedling charm while another side of his face was twitching with twisted insincerity.
(17) We felt that Lego forfeited its responsibility to children by allowing Shell to wheedle its way into playtime and normalise its brand for the next generation.
(18) That intervention was almost certainly the result of wheedling by the FA, who seem so much more comfortable with this sort of provenly ineffectual princery than with being held democratically to account.
(19) Now, they get their celebrity fix from gossip mags, such as Heat and Reveal, which pull celebrities apart like a gaggle of playground bullies, wheedling out their secrets and laughing at their fashion fails, while for aspirational lifestyle, fashion, and serious features, they will buy Elle, Grazia or Instyle – magazines that appear to respect their emotional maturity and purchasing power.
(20) In an attempt to wheedle a confession from the lonely Stagg, she said he would win her heart only if he would admit to sharing her love of Satanism and child murder.