guile
/ɡaɪl/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms guiles guiling guiled
- noun (uncountable) Astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception.
- noun Deceptiveness, deceit, fraud, duplicity, dishonesty.
- verb To deceive, beguile, bewile.
- proper noun A surname from French.
Synonyms
craft craftiness cunning foxiness slyness wiliness deceitfulness trickery chicanery chicane wile shenanigan
Etymology
From Middle English gile, from Anglo-Norman gile, from Old French guile (“deception”), from Frankish *wīl (“ruse”), from Proto-Germanic *wīlą, from Proto-Indo-European *wey- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate via Proto-Germanic with wile.
Variant forms.
* As an English, Scottish, and French surname, borrowed from French guile.
* Also as an English surname, variant of Gill.
* Possibly also Americanized from the German surname Geil.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Craft; deceitful cunning; artifice; duplicity; wile; deceit; treachery.
- verb To disguise or conceal; to deceive or delude. [Obs.] Spenser.
Etymology [OE. guile, gile, OF. guile; of German origin, and the same word as E. wile. See Wile.]
Etymology [OF. guiler. See Guile, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “guile”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details