honey-tongued

honey-tongued (comparative more honey-tongued, superlative most honey-tongued)

1. Sweet-speaking; persuasive; seductive.
   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene 2,

     This is the flower that smiles on every one,

     To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone;

     And consciences, that will not die in debt,

     Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.

   • 1612, Thomas Heywood, An Apology for Actors, London: Nicholas Okes, “First touching their Antiquity,”

     In Iulius Cæsars time […] the famous hony-tong’d Orator Cicero florished; who, amongst many other his eloquent Orations, writ certaine yet extant […]

   • 1634, Francis Meres, “A comparatiue discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets” in Wits Common Wealth, The Second Part, London: William Stansby, p. 623,

     As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to liue in Pythagorus: so the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnesse his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c.

   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, London: Henry Colburn, Volume I, Chapter , pp. 72-73,

     Among his other advantages, Lord Raymond was supremely handsome; every one admired him; of women he was the idol. He was courteous, honey-tongued—an adept in fascinating arts.

   • 1955, C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, London: Geoffrey Bles, Chapter 7, p. 109,

     He was a grey-head with large spectacles and a wide mouth which combined to give him a froglike expression, but nothing could be less froglike than his voice. He was honey-tongued. Every verse he read turned into music on his lips: something midway between speech and song.

• honey-mouthed
• silver-tongued