Search the Dictionary

To lead astray as if blind; to persuade to something evil by deceptive arts or flattery; to entice; to insnare; to seduce; to wheedle. Yet have they many baits and guileful spells To inveigle and invite the un unwary sense. Milton.

name of contempt for a flatterer of persons high in social or official life; as, the Jenkins employed by a newspaper. [Colloq. Eng. & U.S.] G. W. Curtis.

The art, character, or position, of a jockey; the personality of a jockey. Go flatter Sawney for his jockeyship. Chatterton. Where can at last his jockeyship retire Cowper.

nd their eyes were opened, and they knew him. Luke xxiv. 31. To know Faithful friend from flattering foe. Shak. At nearer view he thought he knew the dead. Flatman.

ican antelope (Alcelaphus Lichtensteini), allied to the hartbeest, but having shorter and flatter horns, and lacking a black patch on the face.

laugh at, to make an object of laughter or ridicule; to make fun of; to deride. No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. Pope. -- To laugh in the sleeve, to laugh secretly, or so as not to be observed, especially while apparently preserving a grave or serious demeanor toward t…

n. Legacy duty, a tax paid to government on legacies. Wharton. -- Legacy hunter, one who flatters and courts any one for the sake of a legacy.

An abject flatterer or parasite. Theodore Hook.

Without reason, or for reasons of little weight. Flatter not the rich, neither do thou willingly or lightly appear before great personages. Jer. Taylor.

ree; to a limited extent; somewhat; for a short time. " Stay a little." Shak. The painter flattered her a little. Shak. -- By little and little, or Little by little, by slow degrees; piecemeal; gradually.

A flatterer; a deceiver; a cozener. [Obs.] Chaucer. To a fair pair of gallows, there to end their lives with shame, as a number of such other losengers had done. Holinshed.

Flattery; deceit; trickery. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Given to flattery or deceit; flattering; cozening. [Obs.] Amongst the many simoniacal that swarmed in the land, Herbert, Bishop of Thetford, must not be forgotten; nick-named Losing, that is, the Fratterer. Fuller.

ition, especially as to manner of life. The lowliness of my fortune has not brought me to flatter vice. Dryden.

To flatter. [R. & Obs.] Danie

ed or fitted to entrap or catch; a snare; any device for catching and holding. A man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet. Prov. xxix. 5. In the church's net there are fishes good or bad. Jer. Taylor.

Servilely or meanly attentive; compliant to excess; cringing; fawning; as, obsequious flatterer, parasite. There lies ever in "obsequious" at the present the sense of an observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another. Trench.

Talk; conversation; esp., idle or beguiling talk; talk intended to deceive; flattery.

One who palavers; a flatterer.

uents the tables of the rich, or who lives at another's expense, and earns his welcome by flattery; a hanger-on; a toady; a sycophant. Thou, with trembling fear, Or like a fawning parasite, obey'st. Milton. Parasites were called such smell-feasts as would seek to be free guests at rich men's tables. Udall.…