inveigle (2009-08-21)

Part of Speech: verb

Pronunciation: [in-'vey-gêl]

Definition: To persuade by flattery or cajolery, to lure with clever words or trickery that blur the truth, to trick by deception.

Usage: Inveiglement need not rely on deception, "All his praise for the administration is part of Grimalkin's attempt to inveigle an invitation to the president's dinner table." At the same time, it does not preclude it, "Phil Anders inveigled a small fortune from Phyllis Banks by constantly dropping hints of marriage."

Suggested Usage: The process of inveigling someone is inveiglement and those who engage in it are inveiglers. This word follows the second extension of the "i-before-e" rule, excepting words that sound like "Hey!" Since [e] becomes [i] before [n] and [m] in many dialects of English, you might also keep in mind that today's word begins on "in-."

Etymology: Today's word started out as French aveugler "to blind" from aveugle "blind." Such exchanges of prefixes as we see here are rare but do occur: "abraid" started out as "enbraid." "Aveugle" descended from Vulgar Latin *aboculus "blind," based on ab "away from" + oculus "eye." This word is probably a loan translation, i.e. a translation of the parts of Gaulish "exsops," that is, exs "from" + ops "eye." Both the oc- in "oculus" and "ops" are results of Indo-European *okw-, also the source of English "eye," German "Augen," and Old Russian ochi "eyes" (still used in Serbian) as in the old Russian Gypsy song, Ochi chornye "Dark eyes."