DictionaryAI

persuade

verb
pur-SWAYD/pə(ɹ)ˈsweɪd/UKpuh-SWAYD/pəˈsweɪd/

Formspersuades, persuading, persuaded

3 meanings of persuade

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive
    To get someone, through reasoning and verbal influence, to agree to, accept, or do something.

    A good salesperson can persuade customers to buy things they don't really need.

    She persuaded the committee to approve the new budget.

    Similarconvince, coax, wheedle

    Oppositedissuade, deter

    Note

    Behind the word sits Latin persuādeō, whose parts are kin to English for and sweet, so the word carries a hint of sweetening. In current use it reports success: if you persuade someone, they came round. It takes to (persuade her to stay) or into (persuaded me into buying), and its undoing partner is dissuade. Coax and wheedle are near cousins that lean on charm more than argument.

  2. 2
    verbarchaictransitive
    To urge or plead with someone; to try to convince someone to do something.

    Friends would persuade him to give up the scheme, but he pressed on regardless.

    He persuaded me to go home, but I refused.
    1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of
    Note

    The attempt rather than the result: in this older use, persuading someone did not mean winning them over. David Crockett could write in 1834 "He persuaded me to go home, but I refused," and E. J. Guerin in 1861 "He did not persuade me long before I consented." In current English the first reads as a contradiction, so outside regional speech say urge or try to persuade, and keep the modern sense for success.

  3. 3
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To cause someone to believe something through argument or through reasons offered from reflection.

    His careful arguments persuaded the council of the plan's wisdom.

    But beloued, wee are perswaded better things of you, and things that accompany saluation, though we thus speake.
    1611, The Holy Bible, King James Version
    Note

    Here the verb works on belief rather than action. The King James Bible of 1611 shows its old construction: "we are persuaded better things of you," with the thing believed as the object and of naming the person it concerns. That pattern is now obsolete and will read as an error in modern prose. To win someone over to a belief today, use convince someone of something instead.

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Origin

From Latin persuādeō ("I persuade").