a. [f. SMOOTH a. 14.]
1. Smooth or plausible in speech; using fair or flattering words; smooth-spoken.
1592. Marlowe, Edw. II., IV. v. (1594), H 4. Spencer … Is with that smoothe toongd scholler Baldock gone.
1603–35. Breton, Mad World my Masters, Wks. (Grosart), II. 8/1. A very artificiall faire, sharpe-witted,… and, as I after found, smooth-tongued gentlewoman.
1684. Otway, Atheist, III. i. What a smooth-tongu’d little Rascal ’tis.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 253. The smooth-tongued rascal found no difficulty to insinuate himself into the place of her heart.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, I. xiii. Those Jesuits are so smooth-tongued to women.
1864. Pusey, Daniel, viii. 552. His once smooth-tongued friend, with whom he had taken sweet counsel.
b. Of a poet or writer: Polished, refined. rare–1.
1658. Cokaine, Poems, 11. Here smooth-tongu’d Drayton was inspired by Mnemosynes’s manifold progenie.
2. Marked or characterized by, of the nature of, plausibility or speciousness.
1761. Churchill, Night, 162, Poems, 1767, I. 68. By slavish methods must he learn to please, By smooth-tongu’d fatt’ry, that curst court-disease.
1843. Bethune, Scott. Peasant’s Fire-side, 298. Almost from infancy he had been noted for smooth-tongued falsehood.
Hence Smooth-tonguedness.
1737. Ozell, Rabelais, II. 113. The smooth-tonguedness of the Adversary.
