Cajole - Word of the Day

[Merriam-Webster]( WORD OF THE DAY [May 24, 2018](#none) cajole [Audio pronunciation]( verb | kuh-JOHL Definition 1 a : to persuade with flattery or gentle urging especially in the face of reluctance : [coax]( b : to obtain from someone by gentle persuasion 2 : to deceive with soothing words or false promises Scroll down for more about cajole TRENDING NOW: [embolization]( [oleaginous]( [pansexual]( [symbiote]( [SEE ALL [>]]( PEOPLE ARE READING # ['Folksonomy': Let’s Get Organized]( # [12 Words from All Over the Map]( # ['Ingenious' and 'Ingenuous': More Than a Typo]( # [A Matter-of-Fact Look at 'Deadpan']( WORD GAMES AND QUIZZES: WEEKLY CHALLENGE [May 2018 Words of the Day Quiz]( We’re already at the end of May?! [PLAY NOW]( Nailed this quiz? We have plenty more to try! [TAKE ME THERE [>]]( Did You Know? Cajole comes from a French verb, cajoler, which has the same meaning as the English word. You might not think to associate cajole with [cage](, but some etymologists theorize that cajoler is connected to not one but two words for "cage." One of them is the Anglo-French word cage, from which we borrowed our own cage. It comes from Latin cavea, meaning "cage." The other is the Anglo-French word for "birdcage," which is gaiole. It's an ancestor of our word [jail](, and it derives from Late Latin caveola, which means "little cage." Anglo-French speakers had a related verb, gaioler, which meant "to chatter like a jay in a cage." It's possible that cajoler is a combination of gaioler and cage. Examples of CAJOLE "Wertheim and the 60 Minutes crew were only permitted into the building's circular library, despite an attempt to cajole former Lampoon president Alice Ju to grant them further access." — Brit McCandless Farmer, CBSNews.com, 8 Apr. 2018 "Designers call the ways marketers and developers cajole and mislead us into giving up our data 'dark patterns,' tactics that exploit flaws and limits in our cognition." — Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal, 22 Apr. 2018 Name That Synonym Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of cajole: NILHBASD. [VIEW THE ANSWER [>]]( MERCH Show Your Wordie Pride! New swag now available — featuring our newly added words welp and wordie [CHECK OUT OUR SELECTION [>]]( MORE WORD FUN: [WORD GAMES [>]]( [TRENDING NOW [>]]( [WORDS AT PLAY [>]]( FOLLOW US: [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( [Pinterest]( SHARE: [Facebook][Facebook]( [Twitter][Twitter]( [View this email in a web browser]( You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day. [Unsubscribe from Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day]( [Manage your subscription settings]( Merriam-Webster, Inc. 47 Federal Street P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102 [www.merriam-webster.com](