WILE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wile mean? 

• WILE (noun)
  The noun WILE has 1 sense:

1. the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)

  Familiarity information: WILE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WILE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

chicane; chicanery; guile; shenanigan; trickery; wile

Hypernyms ("wile" is a kind of...):

deceit; deception; dissembling; dissimulation (the act of deceiving)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wile"):

dupery; fraud; fraudulence; hoax; humbug; put-on (something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage)

jugglery (artful trickery designed to achieve an end)

Derivation:

wily (marked by skill in deception)

 Context examples 

Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

So poor Meg sang and rocked, told stories and tried every sleep-prevoking wile she could devise, but all in vain, the big eyes wouldn't shut, and long after Daisy had gone to byelow, like the chubby little bunch of good nature she was, naughty Demi lay staring at the light, with the most discouragingly wide-awake expression of countenance.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by wile; by any device to hoodwink—even Jonathan.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)