Wiled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To deceive or outsmart someone through cunning tactics
2. To entice or manipulate someone into taking action or belief using clever strategies
3. Engaging in crafty behavior to gain an advantage or achieve a specific outcome

Etymology: Before "wile" meant a cunning trick, the Old English "wīl" meant something closer to a craft or device, and its cousin "wiġle" meant divination, the reading of omens. That older sense of skill and artifice runs through the family: Icelandic "vél" still means artifice, craft, device or fraud, and the word is a doublet of "guile", the same root arriving in English by a second route, with "guile" coming through Old French and "wile" through Old Northern French. The Proto-Germanic ancestor "wīlą" carried the sense of craft and deceit, and English kept the sharper edge. A wile is a clever stratagem, and to wile someone is to coax them along by cunning rather than force. "Wiled" is simply the past tense, so it describes someone who has been drawn in by such charm or ruse.

Synonyms: tricked, deceived, fooled, duped, enticed

Antonyms: disillusioned, warned, discouraged