Beguiler

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who skillfully attracts and entranced others while often misleading them with charm or cunning tactics
2. An individual who uses fascination and allure to deceive or manipulate others for personal gain or amusement
3. A person who attracts or influences others through attractive but misleading behavior

Etymology: "Beguiler" is a plain English formation: the verb "beguile" with the agent suffix "-er" attached, meaning one who beguiles. The verb itself is older and has a more interesting trail. It was built on the Middle English "bigilen," combining the prefix "be-" with "guilen," a verb meaning to deceive or trick, and in the medieval period that root carried a clear sense of cheating someone rather than the gentler charm the word has today. The noun followed the same path as the verb, appearing in Middle English in spellings such as "bigiler," "begylar," "begilere," and "bigylere." Those variant forms show that English speakers were still settling on a spelling for the term for some time before the modern form became standard. The word therefore carries a long record of deception in its ancestry, even though contemporary usage tends to emphasize the enchanting side of the sense.

Synonyms: caster, charmer, deceiver, seducer, trickster

Antonyms: honest person, truth-teller, straight shooter