Dictionary

beguilement en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree English beguile Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥tom Proto-Italic *-mentom Latin -mentum Old French -mentbor. Middle English -ment English -ment English beguilement From beguile + -ment.

Meanings

1. The action or process of beguiling; the characteristic of being beguiling.
   • These wintry nights, if she turned from the fire and the beguilement of Jim's songs, to shudderingly look outside at the frosty moonlit world, Andrew's prediction that their waiting pints of water would be all ice in the morning was often a little consolation. 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 183:
   • But a line wasn't feasibly resisted. He loved the etiquette of the thing, the chopping with a credit card, the passing of the tightly rolled note, the procedure courteous and dry, “all done with money,” as Wani said—it was part of the larger beguilement, and once it had begun it squeezed him with its charm and promise. 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 8, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN:
   • 1924, Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Autobiography, First Edition, Volume 2, entry dated Tuesday, April 10, 1906, Little by little Bacon got to beguiling out of Hill things to do, and presently Hill was furnishing him the things to do without any beguilement.

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