Wile
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A trick or stratagem practiced for ensnaring or deception; a sly, insidious artifice plural-normally
"He was seduced by her wiles."
- 2 the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them) wordnet
- 1 To entice or lure. transitive
"He was good to look on, brawly dressed, and with a tongue in his head that would have wiled the bird from the tree."
- 2 Misspelling of while (“to pass the time”). alt-of, misspelling
"Here's a pleasant way to wile away the hours."
- 1 A surname transferred from the nickname.
- 2 A male given name transferred from the surname. rare
Example
More examples"to frustrate all our plots and wiles"
Etymology
From Middle English wile, wyle, from Old Northern French wile (“guile”) and Old English wīl (“wile, trick”) and wiġle (“divination”), from Proto-Germanic *wīlą (“craft, deceit”) (from Proto-Indo-European *wey- (“to turn, bend”)) and Proto-Germanic *wigulą, *wihulą (“prophecy”) (from Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“to consecrate, hallow, make holy”)). Cognate with Icelandic vél, væl (“artifice, craft, device, fraud, trick”), Dutch wijle. Doublet of guile.
The phrase meaning to pass time idly is while away. We can trace the meaning in an adjectival sense for while back to Old English, hwīlen, "passing, transitory". It is also seen in whilend, "temporary, transitory". But since wile away occurs so often, it is now included in many dictionaries.
From Middle English wile, an occupational surname for a trapper or a nickname for a wily person.
Related phrases
More for "wile"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.