Adjacent Words

Guile definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

GUILE, n. gile. Craft; cunning; artifice; duplicity; deceit; usually in a bad sense.
We may, with more successful hope, resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war.
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. John 1.
GUILE, v.t. To disguise craftily.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception [syn: craft, craftiness, cunning, foxiness, guile, slyness, wiliness]
2: the quality of being crafty [syn: craftiness, deceitfulness, guile]
3: the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them) [syn: trickery, chicanery, chicane, guile, wile, shenanigan]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English gile, from Anglo-French, probably of Germanic origin; akin to Old English wigle divination — more at witch Date: 13th century 1. deceitful cunning ; duplicity 2. obsolete stratagem, trick • guileful adjective • guilefully adverb • guilefulness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. treachery, deceit; cunning or sly behaviour. Derivatives: guileful adj. guilefully adv. guilefulness n. guileless adj. guilelessly adv. guilelessness n. Etymology: ME f. OF, prob. f. Gmc

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Guile Guile, n. [OE. guile, gile, OF. guile; of German origin, and the same word as E. wile. See Wile.] Craft; deceitful cunning; artifice; duplicity; wile; deceit; treachery. Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. --John i. 47. To wage by force or guile eternal war. --Milton.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Guile Guile, v. t. [OF. guiler. See Guile, n.] To disguise or conceal; to deceive or delude. [Obs.] --Spenser.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Guile is the quality of being good at deceiving people in a clever way. I love children's innocence and lack of guile.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

gil (mirmah; dolos): "Guile" is twice the translation of mirmah, "fraud," "deceit" (Ps 34:13, "Keep .... thy lips from speaking guile"; PS 55:11, "deceit and guile," the Revised Version (British and American) "oppression (margin "fraud") and guile"); once of `ormah, "craftiness," "guile" (Ex 21:14); once of remiyah, "deception," "fraud" (Ps 32:2, "in whose spirit there is no guile"); in the New Testament of dolos, "bait," hence, generally, "fraud," "guile," "deceit"; Septuagint for mirmah (Isa 53:9, English Versions of the Bible "deceit") and for remiyah (Job 13:7, English Versions of the Bible "deceitfully"; Joh 1:47; 2Co 12:16, "Being crafty, I caught you with guile"; 1Th 2:3; 1Pe 2:1; 2:22; 3:10, quoted from Ps 34:13; Re 14:5, "In their mouth was found no guile," the Revised Version (British and American) after corrected text, "no lie").

Paul's words in 2Co 12:16 have sometimes been quoted in justification of "guile" in religious work, etc.; but he is not describing his actual procedure; but that which the Corinthians might have attributed to him; the lips of the Christian must be kept free from all guile (Ps 34:13; 1Pe 2:1, etc.; The Wisdom of Solomon 1:5 "A holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit" (dolos), the Revised Version (British and American) "A holy spirit"). "Guile" does not appear in Apocrypha; dolos is frequently rendered "deceit."

The Revised Version (British and American) has "guile" for "subtilty" (Ge 27:35; Ac 13:10); "cover itself with guile" for "is covered by deceit" (Pr 26:26); "with guile" for "deceitfully" (Ge 34:13); "spiritual milk which is without guile" for "sincere milk of the word," the English Revised Version, margin "reasonable," the American Revised Version, margin, Greek "belonging to the reason" (compare Ro 12:1; 1Pe 2:2); "guileless" for "harmless" (Heb 7:26).

W. L. Walker

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Cunning, craft, subtlety, artfulness, artifice, duplicity, deceit, deception, trickery, fraud, wiles, wiliness.

Moby Thesaurus

Italian hand, acuteness, art, artfulness, artifice, astuteness, cageyness, callidity, canniness, cleverness, craft, craftiness, cunning, cunningness, deceit, deceitfulness, dissemblance, dissimulation, duplicity, falseheartedness, falseness, fine Italian hand, finesse, foxiness, furtiveness, gamesmanship, hypocrisy, indirection, ingeniousness, insidiousness, inventiveness, one-upmanship, readiness, resourcefulness, satanic cunning, sharpness, shiftiness, shrewdness, slipperiness, slyness, sneak attack, sneakiness, sophistry, stealth, stealthiness, subtilty, subtleness, subtlety, suppleness, surreptitiousness, treacherousness, trickiness, underhandedness, wariness, wiles, wiliness, wit