wiles
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishwileswiles /waɪlz/ noun [plural]
INTELLIGENTclever talk or tricks used to persuade someone to do what you want
It was impossible to resist her feminine wiles.Examples from the Corpuswiles• No, let such fellows as Williams be taken in by her artful wiles!• Make it very clear that when she's in your atmosphere, her wiles are completely inert.• Their wiles are starting to work.• They valued wiles, street smarts, never education.• Am I proud of resorting to stereotypical womanly wiles when I am supposed to be a postmodernist feminist egalitarian?feminine wiles• Surely he wasn't implying that she had been trying out her feminine wiles on Sam?• He somehow managed to resist all my feminine wiles.• I am, of course, no stranger to feminine wiles.Origin wiles (1100-1200) Perhaps from an unrecorded Old North French wile (singular), from Old French guile; → GUILE
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