Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Treacherous cunning; skillful deceit.
  • noun A trick or stratagem.
  • transitive verb To beguile; deceive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To deceive; beguile.
  • To disguise cunningly.
  • noun Disposition to deceive or cheat; insidious artifice; craft; cunning.
  • noun A trick; a wile.
  • noun Synonyms Artfulness, subtlety, deception, trickery.
  • noun The fermented wort used by vinegar-makers.
  • noun A brewers' vat; a guilfat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Craft; deceitful cunning; artifice; duplicity; wile; deceit; treachery.
  • transitive verb obsolete To disguise or conceal; to deceive or delude.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception.
  • noun deceptiveness, deceit, fraud, duplicity, dishonesty
  • verb to deceive, to beguile

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
  • noun shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
  • noun the quality of being crafty

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English wigle, divination, sorcery.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gile, from Anglo-Norman gile, from Old French guile ("deception"), from Frankish *wigila ("ruse"). Cognate via Proto-Germanic with wile.

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Examples

  • Without his intending to, for he is a man wholly lacking in guile, Paul becomes a human, very vulnerable wedge between the two women, testing their love to the limits.

    The Kids Are All Right – review Philip French 2010

  • They have inherited their guile from the Dodo side of the family.

    Blue Grouse of Mann Gulch 1999

  • Stained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old?

    Morton, Topoi of 'Blood and Gold' in Mary and Percy Shelley 1997

  • He seems totally lacking in guile, and so genuine in his liberalism that one almost suspects him, as somebody said long ago of the British Labour party, of allowing his bleeding heart to go to his bloody head.

    Nixon—Humphrey—Wallace! How One Was Chosen 1968

  • With great simplicity and godly sincerity: Our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile, v. 3.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation) 1721

  • 3 For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: 4

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation) 1721

  • The man was totally without guile, which is why he was so refreshing to a Machiavellian schemer like Halcon.

    SERPENT CLIVE CUSSLER 2000

  • The man was totally without guile, which is why he was so refreshing to a Machiavellian schemer like Halcon.

    SERPENT CLIVE CUSSLER 2000

  • Time was ineffably precious -- there was every reason to suspect Yankee guile, which is said to be nowhere more fertilely exhibited than in their conduct of the blockade; but it was deemed possible, after careful scrutiny, that the vessel might be on fire.

    Running the Blockade into the Port of Wilmington, North Carolina 1864

  • If it should be objected by any that though he did not himself burden them, yet, being crafty, he caught them with guile, that is, he sent those among them who pillaged them, and afterwards he shared with them in the profit: "This was not so," says the apostle; "I did not make a gain of you myself, nor by any of those whom I sent; nor did Titus, nor any others -- We walked by the same spirit and in the same steps."

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation) 1721

Comments

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  • "n. The fermented wort used by vinegar-makers."

    --from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

    June 7, 2017