Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be “satanic.” However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.
GUILE
trickery, chicanery, chicane, guile, wile, shenanigan
(noun) the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
craftiness, deceitfulness, guile
(noun) the quality of being crafty
craft, craftiness, cunning, foxiness, guile, slyness, wiliness
(noun) shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
guile (countable and uncountable, plural guiles)
(uncountable) Astuteness often marked by a certain sense of cunning or artful deception.
Deceptiveness, deceit, fraud, duplicity, dishonesty.
Verb
guile (third-person singular simple present guiles, present participle guiling, simple past and past participle guiled)
To deceive, beguile, bewile.
Source: Wiktionary
Guile, n. Etym: [OE. guile, gile, OF. guile; of German origin, and the same word as E. wile. See Wile.]
Definition: Craft; deceitful cunning; artifice; duplicity; wile; deceit; treachery. Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. John i. 47. To wage by force or guile eternal war. Milton.
Guile, v. t. Etym: [OF. guiler. See Guile, n.]
Definition: To disguise or conceal; to deceive or delude. [Obs.] Spenser.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
15 April 2025
DOOMED
(adjective) marked by or promising bad fortune; “their business venture was doomed from the start”; “an ill-fated business venture”; “an ill-starred romance”; “the unlucky prisoner was again put in irons”- W.H.Prescott
Coffee Trivia
