beguile

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bigilen, also begilen,^[2][3][4] formed from English be- + guile.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} The prefix here means "thoroughly",^[10] and the second part is an obsolete verb meaning to deceive,^[10][11][2] Middle English gilen,^[2][3] which is from Old French guiler, from guile (“deceit”).^[5][6] The OED calls the Old French noun presumably Germanic, with no certain etymon known,^[5] and Etymonline thinks it probably comes from Frankish *wigila (“trick, ruse”) or a related Germanic source.^[6] The OED notes that the English verb is cognate with wile.^[5] Compare Middle Dutch begīlen and Anglo-Norman degiler.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To trap or outdo someone by trickery; to delude or cheat: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle,^[5] early 13th century in Etymonline.^[6] The Middle English Dictionary's earliest quotation for its sense "to deceive, betray" is from a copy of Horn of about 1300: Ihc nolde him ne þe bigile.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a term for plain deceit, and by 1394 it could also mean to rob someone of something by fraud.^[5][12] In 1483 Caxton used it for cheating hopes or expectations, that is, to disappoint or foil, a sense that died out by 1650.^[5] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories groups beguile with amuse and divert, whose meanings also moved from misleading to entertaining, and explains the change by the image of leading someone away from their cares;^[13] the OED also calls the later senses analogous to those of amuse.^[5] Shakespeare has both new uses in 1594: charming a person in Lucrece, and taking the mind pleasantly off something irksome in Titus Andronicus.^[5] Etymonline dates the sense "to entertain with pastimes" to the 1580s.^[6] Benson's concordance to Chaucer, who uses the verb 39 times, glosses it as to deceive or betray and also, with time as the object, to pass it.^[14] Johnson (1755) listed "to impose upon; to delude; to cheat", then "to deceive; to evade", then "to deceive pleasingly; to amuse".^[15] According to the Book of Word Histories, the sense "charm, entertain" now has the adjective beguiling entirely to itself.^[13] In Scots the verb meant to trick, disappoint or deprive of something, and the noun a deception or a disappointment.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – to delude, deceive or cheat, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[5]
• c. 1305 – used without an object, to practise deceit.^[5]
• 1394 – to deprive of something by fraud.^[5][12]
• 1483 – to disappoint or foil (obsolete by 1650).^[5][12]
• 1594 – to charm or divert a person, in Shakespeare's Lucrece.^[5][12]
• 1594 – to take the attention pleasantly off something irksome, in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.^[5][12]
• 1637 – noun, deception.^[5][12] The Shorter Oxford dates the noun to the late Middle English period.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To charm or enchant, sometimes in a sly way: Her stories beguiled the whole class.^[17][11][18]
2. To deceive or mislead by trickery: The brochure beguiled pensioners into a worthless scheme.^[2][4][17]
3. To deprive someone of something by trickery, cheat; used with of or out of.^[4][17][2]
4. To pass time pleasantly, while away: We beguiled the long wait with card games.^[17][11][5]
5. To turn the attention from something painful or tedious, so that it fades unnoticed.^[5][4][2]
6. (obsolete, 1483–1650) To disappoint or foil hopes or aims, or a person in them.^[5][4][7]

Noun

1. (archaic, chiefly Scots) A deception.^[5][7][16]

Word family

• beguilement
• beguiler
• beguilingly

Related words

• wile
• guile

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
13. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press