blandishment
Jan. 20th, 2021 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordblandishment (BLAN-dish-muhnt) - n., (often pl.) flattery or other behavior intended to coax or cajole.
As in Hecht's "Dover Bitch," who "really felt sad, / Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds / And blandishments in French and the perfumes." Dates to the mid-16th century, from the verb blandish, coax/cajole, from Anglo-Norman, from Middle French blandir, from Latin blandior, to fawn/flatter/delude, ultimately from PIE root *(s)mel-, erroneous/false.
---L.
As in Hecht's "Dover Bitch," who "really felt sad, / Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds / And blandishments in French and the perfumes." Dates to the mid-16th century, from the verb blandish, coax/cajole, from Anglo-Norman, from Middle French blandir, from Latin blandior, to fawn/flatter/delude, ultimately from PIE root *(s)mel-, erroneous/false.
---L.
