hoodwink
verb
Did you know?
We usually use the word wink to refer to a brief shutting of one eye, but hoodwink draws on an older and more obscure meaning of wink covered in our Unabridged Dictionary: “to close one’s eyes.” To hoodwink someone originally was to effectively do that kind of winking for the person; it meant to “cover someone’s eyes,” as with a hood or a blindfold. This 16th-century term soon came to be used figuratively for veiling the truth. “The public ... is as easily hood-winked,” wrote the Irish physician Charles Lucas in 1756, by which time the figurative use had been around for decades—and today, that meaning of the word is far from winking out.
Examples of hoodwink in a Sentence
David Browne, Rolling Stone, 21 Oct. 2025
Advertisement The Mastermind is two things: The first is a portrait of a hoodwinking bumbler who’s gotten by on charm his whole life, at last forced to reckon with his actions.
—Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 17 Oct. 2025
Slow Horses is a twisty show, but the assumption that Roddy had been hoodwinked by a glamorous woman far out of his league seemed about as safe a bet as possible.
—Scott Tobias, Vulture, 1 Oct. 2025
However, for your sign, money and possessions are where you might be hoodwinked or not realize what’s going on.
—Georgia Nicols, Denver Post, 23 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hoodwink
Cite this Entry
“Hoodwink.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hoodwink. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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hoodwink
verb
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