blandishment
Meanings
Plural: blandishments
Noun
- flattery intended to persuade
- the act of urging by means of teasing or flattery
- Often in the plural form blandishments: a flattering speech or action designed to influence or persuade.
- Something alluring or attractive.
- Allurement, attraction.
Origin / Etymology
From blandish (“to persuade someone by using flattery, to cajole; to praise someone dishonestly, to flatter or butter up”) + -ment (suffix forming nouns from verbs, having the sense of ‘the action or result of what is denoted by the verbs’). Blandish is derived from Middle English blaundishen (“to flatter; to fawn; to be enticing or persuasive; to be favourable; of the sea: to become calm”) [and other forms] (whence blaundice (“flattery, blandishment; caresses, dalliance; allurement, attractiveness; deceitfulness, deception”) [and other forms]), from Middle English blaundishen, from blandiss-, the extended stem of Middle French blandir + Middle English -ishen (suffix forming verbs). Blandir is derived from Latin blandīrī, the present active infinitive of blandior (“to fawn, flatter; to delude”), from blandus (“fawning, flattering, smooth, suave; persuasive; alluring, enticing, seductive; agreeable, pleasant”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- (“erroneous, false; bad, evil”)) + -iō (suffix forming causative verbs from adjectives).
Synonyms
adulation, ass-kissing, ass-licking, blandishment, cajolery, flattery, gloze, hoomalimali, palaver, soft sawder, sooth, sycophancy, wheedling
Scrabble Score: 20
blandishment is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordblandishment is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
blandishment is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary