Forms: 4 blandise, -isshe, -ische, blaundise, -isshe, bloundise, -iss, 4–6 blaundysh, 5 blandysh(e, -yss, -yssh, blaundish, -iss, -yssh, 6 ? blandesh, Sc. blandyis, 5– blandish. [a. F. blandiss- lengthened stem of blandir:—L. blandīri to flatter, f. blandus smooth, soft: see -ISH2. Rare in 17th and 18th c.: Johnson says ‘I have met with this word in no other passage’ than the quotation from Milton (see BLANDISHED).]

1

  1.  trans. To flatter gently by kind words or affectionate actions, to coax; to act upon with caressing action or complaisant speech; to cajole.

2

c. 1305.  [see BLANDISHING vbl. sb.]

3

c. 1430.  Lydg., Bochas, I. viii. (1544), 15 b. She can them blandishen with her flatery.

4

c. 1530.  Proverbs, in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 31. Allso repelle that seruavnte that vsith to blaundysh the.

5

1748.  Richardson, Clarissa, II. xi. 68. You must then blandish him over with a confession, that all your past behaviour was maidenly reserve only.

6

1831.  Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. V. By this fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our Friend be blandished. Ibid. (1837), Fr. Rev., II. III. VII. ii. 353. To blandish down the grimness of Republican austerity.

7

  b.  fig. Of things.

8

1758.  J. G. Cooper, Aristippus, i. (R.). In former days a country life … Was blandish’d by perpetual spring.

9

  2.  intr. (absol.) To use blandishments; to act or speak with gentle allurement or flattery.

10

a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter, i. 1. He spekis of crist & of his folouers, bloundisand til vs. Ibid., xc. 13. The dragoun … that bloundiss with the heuyd and smytes with the tayle.

11

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Parson’s T., 302. If he flatere or blandise [v.r. blaundise, blandisshe, blaundisshe, blandische] moore than hym oghte for any necessite.

12

1622.  Drayton, Poly-olb., xiii. 220. How shee blandishing, By Dunsmore drives along.

13

  † 3.  trans. To offer blandly (cf. to smile thanks).

14

c. 1630.  Drumm. of Hawth., Wks., 11. Though they [flowers] sometime blandish soft delight.

15

1638.  R. James, Wks. (1880), 254. That knew not how to menace speare, Or blandish words that ravish sense.

16