hoodwink

English

Etymology

From hood + wink. First attested in the 1560s, in the sense "to blindfold".

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈhʊdwɪŋk/
  • (file)

Verb

hoodwink (third-person singular simple present hoodwinks, present participle hoodwinking, simple past and past participle hoodwinked) (transitive)

  1. (figuratively) To deceive by disguise; to dupe, bewile, mislead.
    I feel like the salesman hoodwinked me into buying right away.
  2. (archaic) To cover the eyes with a hood; to blindfold.
    • Folio Society, 2006, vol.1 p.81:
      Some there are, that through feare anticipate the hangmans hand; as he did, whose friends having obtained his pardon, and putting away the cloth wherewith he was hood-winkt, that he might heare it read, was found starke dead upon the scaffold, wounded only by the stroke of imagination.
  3. (archaic) To make someone forgetful of, or oblivious to, something.
    • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene i]:
      Caliban:
      Good my Lord, giue me thy fauour ſtil,
      Be patient, for the prize Il bring thee too
      Shall hudwinke this miſchance : therefore ſpeake ſoftly,
      All's huſht as midnight yet.
  4. (archaic) To hide.

Translations

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