GUILE
What does "GUILE" mean?
Sly or cunning intelligence used to deceive or manipulate.
Meanings
- Crafty deceitfulness; treacherous cunning. He won the negotiation through patience and a little guile.
Did you know?
- 'Guile' and 'wile' are linguistic cousins from the same root for trickery - and the word survives most often in its negative, 'guileless', meaning utterly without cunning.
Word origin
From Old French 'guile' meaning deceit or trickery, probably of Germanic origin and related to the root behind 'wile'; the word and its opposite, 'guileless', share this stem.
Remember it
GUILE sounds like 'guy + isle' - picture a sly guy plotting alone on his own little island.
A little poem
The honest blade is loud, and easy to dodge;
guile wears your own face and walks in unannounced.
couplet
Wordplay
- The con artist filed taxes on his cunning. Turns out there's no deduction for guile.
What it teaches
Guile wins the short game and forfeits the long one: nobody trusts a key that has picked a lock.
Quick facts
What does GUILE mean?
Sly or cunning intelligence used to deceive or manipulate.
Is GUILE a valid word?
Yes — GUILE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is GUILE?
GUILE has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does GUILE come from?
From Old French 'guile' meaning deceit or trickery, probably of Germanic origin and related to the root behind 'wile'; the word and its opposite, 'guileless', share this stem.
What can GUILE teach us?
Guile wins the short game and forfeits the long one: nobody trusts a key that has picked a lock.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.