guile
pronunciation
How to pronounce guile in British English:
UK [gaɪl]
How to pronounce guile in American English:
US [ɡaɪl]
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- Noun:
- shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
- the quality of being crafty
- the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
Word Origin
- guile (n.)
- mid-12c., from Old French guile "deceit, wile, fraud, ruse, trickery," probably from Frankish *wigila "trick, ruse" or a related Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *wih-l- (cognates: Old Frisian wigila "sorcery, witchcraft," Old English wig "idol," Gothic weihs "holy," German weihen "consecrate"), from PIE root *weik- (2) "consecrated, holy."
Synonym
Example
- 1. The girl was so happy , without a trace of jealousy or guile .
- 2. Indeed , few are certain that mr saleh , famed for his guile , is sincere in promising to bow out for good .
- 3. It seems mistaken to suppose that mere churchillian rhetoric or rooseveltian guile could achieve this .
- 4. Gautam adani , a strapping billionaire with a habit of watching share prices on television as he talks , has used brawn and guile to build from scratch an empire of ports , power and coal centred in gujarat , a western state .