tempt

From Middle English tempten, from Old French tempter (French: tenter), from Latin temptare, from tentare (“to handle, touch, try, test, tempt”), frequentative of tendere (“to stretch”). Displaced native English costning (“temptation”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /tɛmpt/, /tɛmt/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛmpt, -ɛmt

tempt (third-person singular simple present tempts, present participle tempting, simple past and past participle tempted)

1. (transitive) To provoke someone to do wrong, especially by promising a reward; to entice.

   Synonyms: entice, fand, lure, pander, tease

   She tempted me to eat the apple.

   • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 2:

     By Heav’ns, ſuch Virtues, join’d with ſuch Succeſs,
     Diſtract my very Soul: Our Father’s Fortune
     Wou’d almoſt tempt us to renounce his Precepts.

   • 1994, Claire A. Culleton, Names and Naming in Joyce:

     Eveline Hill, the protagonist of the Dubliners story "Eveline," for example, successfully extricates herself from the confines of her "Eve" name since, like her nameling in the Garden of Eden who was tempted by promises of knowledge, Eveline, too, is tempted: […]

2. (transitive) To attract; to allure.

   Synonyms: beguile, entrance; see also Thesaurus:allure

   Its glossy skin tempted me.

   • 2008, Popular Mechanics, How to Tempt a Fish: A Complete Guide to Fishing, page 20:

     The next time you are trout fishing and none of your lures tempts the fish, smoke a spoon hook and cast it.

3. (transitive) To provoke something; to court.

   Synonyms: foment, urge; see also Thesaurus:incite

   It would be tempting fate.

• “tempt”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “tempt”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “tempt”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

tempt (transitive, 1st conjugation, present tempju, temp, tempj, past tempu)

1. to gulp
2. to swill
3. to quaff