Forms: 4 blandise, -isshe, -ische, blaundise, -isshe, bloundise, -iss, 46 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. trans. To flatter gently by kind words or affectionate actions, to coax; to act upon with caressing action or complaisant speech; to cajole.
c. 1305. [see BLANDISHING vbl. sb.]
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, I. viii. (1544), 15 b. She can them blandishen with her flatery.
c. 1530. Proverbs, in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 31. Allso repelle that seruavnte that vsith to blaundysh the.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, II. xi. 68. You must then blandish him over with a confession, that all your past behaviour was maidenly reserve only.
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.
b. fig. Of things.
1758. J. G. Cooper, Aristippus, i. (R.). In former days a country life Was blandishd by perpetual spring.
2. intr. (absol.) To use blandishments; to act or speak with gentle allurement or flattery.
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.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Parsons T., 302. If he flatere or blandise [v.r. blaundise, blandisshe, blaundisshe, blandische] moore than hym oghte for any necessite.
1622. Drayton, Poly-olb., xiii. 220. How shee blandishing, By Dunsmore drives along.
† 3. trans. To offer blandly (cf. to smile thanks).
c. 1630. Drumm. of Hawth., Wks., 11. Though they [flowers] sometime blandish soft delight.
1638. R. James, Wks. (1880), 254. That knew not how to menace speare, Or blandish words that ravish sense.