hoodwink means an act of hiding from sight, or something that cloaks or hides another thing from view. It carries an Arena rating of 1614, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, hoodwink ranks #2,309 of 14,431 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,350 of 14,448 for Most Incisive Words, #2,357 of 14,297 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,374 of 14,451 for Most Whimsical Words.
hoodwink is pronounced /ˈhʊdwɪŋk/.
Why “hoodwink” is a great word
To deceive or mislead someone, often by concealing the truth or presenting a false appearance. From hood (a head covering) and wink (to close one's eyes), originally meaning 'to blindfold' (first attested 1562). Unlike 'dupe,' which suggests a simpler trick played on the gullible, or 'defraud,' which implies deception for material gain, to hoodwink is to orchestrate an artful obscuration, a theater of deceit. It is the card sharp's practiced flourish, the politician's glossy promise, the lover's half-truth breathed into the dark—the quiet violence of making someone see what you wish them to see, and nothing else.
Etymology
The verb is derived from hood (“head covering attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak”) + wink (“to close one’s eyes”). (< C16 'to blindfold').
The noun is derived from the verb.
noun
- An act of hiding from sight, or something that cloaks or hides another thing from view.“What think you of Flattery, Fondneſs, and Tears? Thoſe are Hood-winks that Wives have ready upon every Occaſion.”
- The game of blind man's buff.“Whereas the Mountaine Nymphs, and thoſe that doe frequent / The Fountaines, Fields, and Groues, with wondrous meriment, / By Moone-ſhine many a night, doe giue each other chaſe, / At Hood-winke, Barley-breake, at Tick, or Priſon-baſe, / With tricks, and antique toyes, that one another mocke, / That skip from Crag to Crag, and leape from Rocke to Rocke.”
verb
- To cover the eyes with, or as if with, a hood; to blindfold.“Some there are, that through feare anticipate the hang-mans 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 vpon the ſcaffold, wounded onely by the ſtroke of imagination.”
- To deceive using a disguise; to beguile, dupe, mislead.“For, (having many times torne the vaile of modestie) it seemed, for a laste delight, that she delighted in infamy: which often she had used to her husbands shame, filling all mens eares (but his) with reproch; while he (hoodwinkt with kindnes) lest of all mẽ [men] knew who strake him.”
- To hide or obscure.“Good my Lord, giue me thy fauour ſtil, / Be patient, for the prize Ile bring thee too / Shall hudwinke this miſchance: therefore ſpeake ſoftly, / All's huſht as midnight yet.”
- To close the eyes.“[W]herfore haue you ſate ſtill, and comply'd and hood-winkt, till the generall complaints of the Land have ſqeez'd you to a wretched, cold and hollow-hearted confeſſion of ſome Prelaticall riots both in this and other places of your Booke.”
Words closest in meaning
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