intrigue

Formsintrigues, intriguing, intrigued

Pluralintrigues

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To capture someone's curiosity and make them want to know more.

   The unsolved case intrigued detectives for decades.

   Strange coincidences intrigue scientists who study probability.

   Similarfascinate, interest, puzzle, captivate, absorb

   Oppositebore

   Note

   Curiosity runs from thing to person here. What is interesting is the subject, and the curious person is the object: in Wallace Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (1954), haze and shifting scale "intrigued Dutton." Brian Hayes in American Scientist (2012) lists it with entice and delight. That company marks it as pleasant, drawing curiosity rather than anything sinister.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A complicated, secret plot to achieve some purpose through hidden trickery; a conspiracy or scheme.

   The court seethed with intrigue as rival factions maneuvered for the throne.

   Her novel captures the intrigue of Cold War espionage.

   Similarscheming, plotting, conspiracy, machination, subterfuge

   Note

   The word comes through French from Latin intrīcō, "I entangle, perplex," and it is a doublet of intricate. An intrigue is, at bottom, a tangle. Carlyle sets intrigues beside pettifoggings, treacheries and diplomacies, the vocabulary of court politics. The noun works two ways. As a mass noun it names an atmosphere of scheming (a court seething with intrigue). With an article, an intrigue is one particular plot.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To devise or pursue a secret scheme, especially one meant to harm; to plot.

   The ministers intrigued to undermine the new chancellor.

   Courtiers intrigue endlessly, each seeking the king's favor.

   Similarplot, scheme, conspire, connive, maneuver

   Note

   Here the verb takes no direct object: people intrigue against a rival, or intrigue to bring someone down. That is what separates it from the "fascinate" verb, which always has a person as its object. The ministers intrigued means they plotted. The plan intrigued the ministers means it caught their interest.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A secret love affair; an illicit romantic or sexual relationship carried on in private.

   Court gossip hinted at intrigue between the queen and her secretary.

   Their intrigue continued in secret for years.

   Similaraffair, liaison, romance, dalliance

   Note

   Here the secrecy belongs to a love affair, and the frame is easy to mistake for the scheming sense: an intrigue with someone, or an intrigue between two people. Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) has a man "carrying on an intrigue with a certain Mrs. Raikes." A partner named after with or between is the signal that an affair, not a plot, is meant.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   The plot of a play, poem, or story: the web of complications a writer creates for the characters.

   Critics praised the tight intrigue of the new tragedy.

   The novel's intrigue weaves three families into one disaster.

   Similarplot, storyline

6. 6
   verbintransitive

   To carry on a secret, illicit romantic or sexual relationship.

   The two courtiers intrigued behind their spouses' backs for years.

   Rumor held that the pair continued to intrigue long after the scandal.

   Note

   The verb partner of the secret love affair. Like the plotting verb, it takes no object, so a bare they intrigued could mean either. A named lover, or a setting of spouses and scandal, points to the romantic reading. A goal or a victim points to scheming.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To fill with trickery and deceit; to make tangled and complicated.

   Endless amendments intrigued the once-clear treaty beyond recognition.

   Schemers intrigue every negotiation they touch.

   Similarcomplicate, entangle, tangle, muddle

   Oppositesimplify, clarify, untangle

   Note

   This sense stays closest to the Latin "entangle": the object is a matter or a way of life, made intricate by guile. Thomas More (1533) spells it intryke and pairs it with involve. John Scott (c. 1681) has sin "perplex and intrigue the whole course of your lives," echoing the root's double meaning. Unlike the "fascinate" verb, its object is never a curious person.

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