alluring - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

By surface analysis, allure +‎ -ing.

alluring (comparative more alluring, superlative most alluring)

  1. Having the power to allure.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile ; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.

alluring (plural allurings)

  1. The act or habit of enticing or attracting in order to seek a benefit or advantage.
    • 1615, George Wither, Fidelia:
      Was this poor breast, from Love's allurings free, / Cruel to all, and gentle unto thee ?
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:
      For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air.
    • 1952, Daughters of the American Revolution, volume 86, page 250:
      Lookout heights and Smoky Mountains have allurings all their own.

alluring

  1. present participle and gerund of allure

having to power to allure — see also enchanting