wheedle ˈ(h)wē-dᵊl verb
: influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
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The word wheedle has appeared in three articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Feb. 4 in the book review “The Journalist and the Murderers” by Randall Kennedy:
In “Race Against Time,” Jerry Mitchell chronicles belated efforts — many of them spurred by his own work as a journalist — to prosecute perpetrators of racially motivated violence in Alabama and Mississippi during the 1960s. Beginning in the 1980s, as a reporter for the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell decided to reinvestigate unsolved civil-rights-era murder cases, pursuing old leads, uncovering new evidence and publishing article after article after article. His journalistic coups revealed an uncanny ability to wheedle incriminating remarks from defensive suspects and damning observations from unfriendly witnesses.
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