[f. as prec. + -MENT: cf. OF. blandissement.]
1. Gently flattering speech or action; cajolery.
1591. Spenser, M. Hubberd, 1274. He gan enquire … of the Foxe, and his false blandishment.
1622. Bacon, Henry VII., Wks. (1860), 477. He … would use strange sweetness and blandishments of words.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 128. ¶ 4. Nature has given all the Arts of Soothing and Blandishment to the Female.
1880. L. Stephen, Pope, iv. 96. He was not … inaccessible to aristocratic blandishments.
2. fig. Attraction, allurement. concr. Anything that pleases or allures.
1594. Greene, Look. Glasse (1861), 142. Bear hence these wretched blandishments of sin (Taking off his crown and robe).
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 609/1. If any external blandishments happen, they increase not the chief good.
1875. J. Bennet, Winter Medit., II. xi. 369. His thoughts … were ever on the blandishments of imperial Rome.
