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coax
in a sentence

show 187 more with this conextual meaning
  • "Just a little farther," coaxed the Count.   (source)
  • I made him a little surprise dinner, thinking I could coax the proposal out of him.   (source)
    coax = obtain a result through gentle and careful effort
  • He added more wood and coaxed the smoke into flames, then headed out in search of food.   (source)
    coaxed = carefully turned
  • But that time Piggy had coaxed and bullied.   (source)
    coaxed = gently persuaded
  • "And after all," Fanny's tone was coaxing, "it's not as though there were anything painful or disagreeable about having one or two men besides Henry."   (source)
    coaxing = gently persuading
  • Even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity.   (source)
    coax = obtain a result through gentle and careful effort
  • It was a very lively march on account of the new elephants, who gave trouble at every ford, and needed coaxing or beating every other minute.   (source)
    coaxing = gentle persuasion
  • Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up and get him sober; but it warn't no use—   (source)
    coax = persuade
  • Come, Melia, they coaxed.†   (source)
  • I'd been able to coax it back to life by replacing its system memory and reloading the stone-age operating system.†   (source)
  • Salva would talk to them, encourage them, coax and persuade them.†   (source)
  • The teachers are always trying to coax her out, but she wraps her arms around herself like she's cold and keeps on rocking.†   (source)
  • The British historian hoped the touch of the Grand Master's cryptex would make Langdon fully grasp the magnitude of its contents, coaxing his academic curiosity to overwhelm all else, forcing him to realize that failure to unlock the keystone would mean the loss of history itself.†   (source)
  • Tally lay almost flat to cut down wind resistance, coaxing every ounce of speed from Croy's board.†   (source)
  • I tried to coax it to come but it would not.†   (source)
  • She coaxed it down on to her arm where it held out an obliging leg so that she could attach the parcel.†   (source)
  • They stand twisted in bladder positions and bang on the door for a few minutes and almost coax my great aunt out, but then my grandfather curses something at my great aunt, and the cycle starts over again.†   (source)
  • "You can say it," the girl coaxed.†   (source)
  • If you have mastered the material, then the proper phrase will conjure it — like the magic words that coax a genie from a bottle.†   (source)
  • And I was busy talking to my buried seedlings, coaxing them to spring up and greet the rising sun, when my father came outside.†   (source)
  • Five dollars coaxes a Bible and a candle out of the desk clerk at the motel.†   (source)
  • My old professor had even coaxed compassion out of the television business.†   (source)
  • "Sure," Calvin's voice was coaxing.†   (source)
  • Alice, Fanny Amos, and Winnie are shy, need coaxing, keep their eyes down to their laps.†   (source)
  • She shook her head and finally, after all that coaxing, sat down.†   (source)
  • "Saidu, Saidu," Kanei coaxed him.†   (source)
  • Commander Jameson says it in a light, coaxing voice.†   (source)
  • I coaxed one of the Keeling kids to take me in one of the boats to Pointe au Baril Station.†   (source)
  • The sun appears butter-yellow and so warm it coaxes tulips out of the crusty mud.†   (source)
  • The truck yaws like a ship at sea as Neumann One coaxes it over ruts.†   (source)
  • I decide to make it my mission to coax one out of her.†   (source)
  • It's like coaxing a baby bird.†   (source)
  • She could not penetrate Lola's detachment or coax from Pierrot the common inflections of everyday speech.†   (source)
  • "Here girl, here girl," he says to it coaxingly.†   (source)
  • After a surprisingly minimal amount of coaxing by me, he shocked us all by not only signing off on the idea but also encouraging my parents to let me go.†   (source)
  • "Put this on, Aunt Rachel," she coaxed.†   (source)
  • We didn't coax her out for two hours, until the Colonel unscrewed a bottle of wine.†   (source)
  • When he poses for the camera he has to be coaxed into a smile.†   (source)
  • She felt an urge to run far, far away, to shield the tiny flame John had coaxed up inside her from her mother's chilling presence.†   (source)
  • The modest tent he had coaxed out of Lord Lefford's stores had been erected in the center of the four fires.†   (source)
  • I was saving it for later, but he clearly needs coaxing back to my side.†   (source)
  • He stood and coaxed her up beside him.†   (source)
  • Then I realized that she enjoyed being coaxed.†   (source)
  • Noah was in the living room squatting before a fire, doing his best to coax it to life.†   (source)
  • By noon, half the shtetl was gathered outside their door, laughing and trading stories so loudly the chickens hid in the barn, refusing to come out even when three little boys in short pants and yarmulkes tried to coax them with corn.†   (source)
  • One minute he's frantic and heated …. the next minute he's gentle and coaxing.†   (source)
  • Coach Hedge leaped around like a happy mountain goat, coaxing them on like he used to do on track days at school.†   (source)
  • If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away?†   (source)
  • And he was savvy enough to understand that the more attention he got from the news media the easier it would be to coax corporations to open their checkbooks.†   (source)
  • "Oh, come on," she coaxed.†   (source)
  • The Retrieval Squad roared military-type affirmatives, coaxing as many metallic noises from their weapons as possible.†   (source)
  • She coaxes them past the shelter's threshold to go to the ocean, which most have never seen.†   (source)
  • Above us the fan whirs softly, coaxing warm air around the room.†   (source)
  • Every surface was coaxed to a high gloss.†   (source)
  • Rarely, Valerie could be coaxed into undoing the bun and showing us the braid, which reached to her waist.†   (source)
  • "Let's go, Grandma, we're gonna be late," I said, trying to coax her toward the front door.†   (source)
  • "Come on," he coaxed.†   (source)
  • "That was your nursemaid," she coaxed.†   (source)
  • "Tell me about the two men," I coaxed.†   (source)
  • Let's just look at our options for a minute," Alice coaxed.†   (source)
  • In spite of Big Tony's efforts to coax her out of her apartment, Michael's mother didn't make it.†   (source)
  • All we needed to do was coax the Taliban down there.†   (source)
  • My grades kept slipping as he talked me into going out with him every night, always sweet-talking me into it the same way he coaxed me out of the house.†   (source)
  • After some coaxing, Baby Suggs came to the table and sat down.†   (source)
  • I COAXED OUT of Mom what had happened.†   (source)
  • Where the sphere contacts the street, it makes a circular wave front, making pebbles bounce, flipping old McDonald's containers that have long been smashed flat, and coaxing fine, flourlike dust out of all the tiny crevices in the pavement, so that it sweeps across the road toward her like a microscopic blizzard.†   (source)
  • "Coax him back in," she said.†   (source)
  • She smiled and coaxed, her kind eyes disappeared into slits behind her glasses.†   (source)
  • Turning his back to the breath-snatching wind, he finally coaxed the single small rectangle of unfolded paper out of its nest.†   (source)
  • He always rang me, he always talked me down, coaxed me home.†   (source)
  • It took me nearly a month to coax her out of the tunnels, let alone get close enough to talk.†   (source)
  • He's wrapped around the cello, coaxing all the sound he can get out of his new instrument.†   (source)
  • Caleb coaxes Susan to her feet.†   (source)
  • "Come on, Octavia," he coaxed, and slowly, tentatively, she poked her head out again.†   (source)
  • The small surgical instruments moved carefully, a millimeter at a time, coaxing tissue away from the vital blood vessels, trying not to touch or damage the other fragile parts of her brain.†   (source)
  • We played good cop /bad cop, Sonja coaxing while I threatened.†   (source)
  • I coaxed like a hostage negotiator on a SWAT team.†   (source)
  • She believed Hatsumomo was a woman bent on self-destruction, and that all we needed to do was to coax her along a path she was certain to follow in any case.†   (source)
  • I'll coax it out of him, I thought.†   (source)
  • In Ocean Park I had taken tap-dancing lessons; my older brothers would coax me to perform for visitors, and it gained me a lot of attention.†   (source)
  • I went upstairs and coaxed my hair into a ponytail.†   (source)
  • A chorus ofWhoa s,Steady there s, andHey there, Nell s rang out as the fifteen men coaxed their mounts to form a circle around Eragon and Arya.†   (source)
  • Selena had coaxed Josie onto the floor with her.†   (source)
  • The pigeon did not have to be coaxed.†   (source)
  • Finally Moody coaxed a spoonful of soup into his sister.†   (source)
  • I kept coaxing.†   (source)
  • Ida hesitated, and he smiled again, coaxing and tender.†   (source)
  • I wrote Winnie two letters about a particularly beautiful tomato plant, how I coaxed it from a tender seedling to a robust plant that produced deep red fruit.†   (source)
  • "Hey, now, check this out," I coaxed.†   (source)
  • The silent ones, the ones with frozen faces and withered limbs or whose heads and hands shake too violently to hold utensils, sit around the edges of the room accompanied by aides who spoon little bits of food into their mouths and then coax them into masticating.†   (source)
  • Catching a ride with Robyn or one of my Avenue buds, coaxing myself mostly awake with a whiff of white.†   (source)
  • It fades when cool hands coax my mouth open and pour liquid down.†   (source)
  • She coaxed him out eventually with the sweet rolls.†   (source)
  • "We could take some side trips, this time," he coaxed.†   (source)
  • Silver roused the others and began to coax them into the field.†   (source)
  • "Well, come on kitty-kitty-kitty," I coaxed.†   (source)
  • Finally, through some coaxing, Clancy got the truth again.†   (source)
  • "You know, Uncle Pros," she said in a coaxing tone.†   (source)
  • I was the spider who could not coax any flies into his web.†   (source)
  • The job required coaxing passersby onto bizarre exercise equipment in public places, tending to the needs of C-list celebrities on set, and waxing facial hair off perfect strangers.†   (source)
  • "Okay, baby," he coaxed.†   (source)
  • All that time Elmira brought him his food and coaxed him to eat it.†   (source)
  • We had to coax them to take it.†   (source)
  • So, for the first three weeks of the tight two-month schedule, some of the most elite warriors in the world got into a murky swimming pool and, according to one of the SEALs present, coaxed the anxious Colombian marines into the water.†   (source)
  • One had to water a plant before it could be coaxed to grow; children had to survive long enough to benefit from school.†   (source)
  • It was a hardworking farming life for the Sousleys, mostly tobacco, but the hay needed to be cut, cows meant milk for the children, and the vegetables were whatever Goldie could coax from the garden.†   (source)
  • No coaxing.†   (source)
  • For Christmas one year I had coaxed a bassett onto the light blue silk by using a biscuit.†   (source)
  • While the fauns worked to coax more speed out of the Indigo Dragon, Bert, Bug, Jack, and Charles divvied up the remaining weaponry, which was old and rather shopworn.†   (source)
  • The book was there, but it would take a little coaxing to actually get it into our hands.†   (source)
  • But Claudia held me, not with a gentle pleading, a miserable coaxing that would have dissipated that power, making me feel pity for her as I gathered my own forces.†   (source)
  • The little animal fell to the ground and the mother began to lick it, leaving it as clean and shiny as waxed wood, coaxing it with her muzzle to stand up.†   (source)
  • 'It isn't really cotton,' he coaxed.†   (source)
  • I was coaxing her.†   (source)
  • I would be expected to coax presents from the grandfather.†   (source)
  • Henry put an arm around Eddie's shoulders and coaxed him away from Vlad.†   (source)
  • Always coaxing me into sharing so that I didn't wind up exploding later.†   (source)
  • "Shhhhhh," Miss Violet coaxed, "everybody quiet."†   (source)
  • For it was Tomas's voice that had once coaxed forth her timorous soul from its hiding place in her bowels.†   (source)
  • The maali could coax roses out of the earth where their neighbors failed.†   (source)
  • All from governments that had been coaxed for three years with promises of power.†   (source)
  • I told her it was easy, but no matter how much I coaxed her and reassured her she just said no in a tiny voice.†   (source)
  • And without any coaxing, he went back to the water and after a few wary sniffs, drank as if nothing had happened.†   (source)
  • Felicia coaxes her young son to join her.†   (source)
  • I dampened it with water and tried to coax it into a few waves about my forehead.†   (source)
  • His voice was as smooth and coaxing as his smile.†   (source)
  • The court dined in its private rooms, and finally the most senior of her attendants had come to coax the queen to bed.†   (source)
  • The early-afternoon sun coaxed radiant hues from the grounds, as Rowan's campus had blossomed quickly with spring.†   (source)
  • Julian was adept at coaxing the lizards to crawl into his palm and sleep there as he stroked their heads with his thumb.†   (source)
  • "Come on," Archie said, a good friend now, encouraging coaxing.†   (source)
  • They coax the truth out of me, like Mama's.†   (source)
  • Bryan began to sympathize with dentists who had to coax a patient to open wide.†   (source)
  • I knelt beside him and coaxed him out from under the rocks.†   (source)
  • They coaxed the sleeper to the bar and my father managed to remember all the Cambridge names, recalling even the exploits of the notorious Sharron K——, who caused havoc with the population of three colleges.†   (source)
  • When I touched her shoulder she began shuddering, sobbing deeply into the bend of her elbow, and when I tried to coax her out she shook me off and dug in deeper.†   (source)
  • And finally, after a lot of gentle coaxing, she said it was about sex.†   (source)
  • She'd found it trembling under a car on 105th Street and spent an hour coaxing it out.†   (source)
  • He fed the elephants grapes and honey until they were as fat as couches, and he coaxed them into the water off Ceuta, saying, Let's just go for a little swim, and the currents carried them to Spain, where they climbed up on the beach.†   (source)
  • "And thou art Queen of Narnia too, I doubt not, pretty one," said the Witch in the same coaxing, half-mocking tone.†   (source)
  • "Come on," Berger coaxes.†   (source)
  • It crossed his mind, as he was coaxing the cold engine to life, that he could have told Linnie to take a streetcar instead.†   (source)
  • The daughter of the secretary of state is clad only in a nightdress and has been sitting at the foot of her father's bed, trying to coax him to sleep.†   (source)
  • At first, the page seemed blank, but gradually the rays of the full moon coaxed its symbols, the secret runes of power, to appear.†   (source)
  • After lunch, we put on our swimsuits, and Dad and Liz splashed me when they went into the pool, but no matter how much they coaxed, I wouldn't go in.†   (source)
  • A coaxing voice, a grinning tone: lean Sergeant Corse, a bowlegged aide.†   (source)
  • Perhaps your pig is barren, perhaps no. Sometimes a girl just has to be coaxed and courted.†   (source)
  • He was whispering then, coaxing, I assumed, his mouth covering hers.†   (source)
  • We work hard coaxing the land to feed us.†   (source)
  • I coaxed her.†   (source)
  • Wyoh tried to coax him.†   (source)
  • She'll loosen her black hair, and laugh and coax and flatter (a mad girl.†   (source)
  • In the kitchen he boiled a pot of water—it smelled as though it came unfiltered from the pond—and coaxed a cup of weak tea from an elderly bag of Twinings.†   (source)
  • Instead he stood in front of her empty desk in the evening, after everyone had gone home, and touched her things — her typewriter, her scissors, her pencil cup, her blotter — as if trying to coax them into yielding up what somewhere in their atoms they had to know.†   (source)
  • Cacciato leading them west through peaceful country, deep country perfumed by lilacs and burning hemp, a boy coaxing them step by step through rich and fertile country toward Paris.†   (source)
  • To get him away, I'd have to coax, drag and often force him to keep on.†   (source)
  • Whisking a handful of grass, my mother coaxed them into the light and watched the tiny yellow windows close and open again as the goats skipped backward into the shade.†   (source)
  • Alice Cooksey was with her, coaxing water to a boil on a Sterno kit.†   (source)
  • Hold it tightly by its little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you.†   (source)
  • My father and mother, who believed that I saw nothing in the world which was not strictly coaxed into place like a vine on our garden trellis to be presented to my eyes, would have been badly concerned if they had guessed how often the weak and inferior and strangely turned examples of what was to come showed themselves to me.†   (source)
  • On the palm of his hand he placed a dried leaf and a fragment of resin-soaked yacca-yacca; then he blew on them gently, carefully, as though he were coaxing a reluctant flame.†   (source)
  • The upshot of the whole scene was that the girls never overcame their fear of the water during the entire week, nor could I coax them into even the most basic discussion of swimming.†   (source)
  • She coaxed the fluid into Faye.†   (source)
  • Come on now, let's begin to have us a good time," he said coaxingly.†   (source)
  • "Walk this way, Lena," he coaxed, standing behind it.†   (source)
  • Now, now, whoa there, I'll show you how to butt," her mistress coaxed her in a whisper, but the cow crossly shook her head and craned her neck, mooing plaintively, and beyond the black barns of Meliuzeievo the stars twinkled, and invisible threads of sympathy stretched between them and the cow as if there were cattle sheds in other worlds where she was pitied.†   (source)
  • Come in, Walter, she said, and her voice was as overwarm as if she were coaxing a child.†   (source)
  • He coaxed me out into the sunlight and we sat down together on the brown earth that was part of us, and we gazed at the paddy fields spreading rich and green before us, and they were indeed beautiful.†   (source)
  • Coaxingly maternal.†   (source)
  • My whole case hangs on something I've got to coax out of this man.†   (source)
  • Must I coax you?†   (source)
  • The others, who were working on a monthly basis, and whom Dick kept with him by a combination of coaxing and good humored threats, she said could leave at the month's end.†   (source)
  • I have three very particular friends who have been all dying for him in their turn; and the pains which they, their mothers (very clever women), as well as my dear aunt and myself, have taken to reason, coax, or trick him into marrying, is inconceivable!   (source)
    coax = gently persuade
  • "I made pancakes with maple syrup this morning, for your birthday," coaxed Aunt Queen.†   (source)
  • The memory actually coaxes a smile out of me.†   (source)
  • A man could get mighty hungry before he had coaxed that spark into a cooking fire.†   (source)
  • Where's Hedwig, Harry?" she said coaxingly.†   (source)
  • She exhaled heavily, as if coaxing Langdon to relax along with her.†   (source)
  • She coaxed her out of bed for baths and meals.†   (source)
  • It's got four thousand attack power," I coaxed.†   (source)
  • We were both silent for a moment, and then his cool finger was under my chin, coaxing my face up.†   (source)
  • Now that I'm stronger she coaxes me back into our mother-daughter nights.†   (source)
  • He woke all night and got up and coaxed the fire to life again.†   (source)
  • "Please, Minerva, please," Sinita coaxed.†   (source)
  • I had actually caught myself coaxing her to eat.†   (source)
  • With all of her intention, she coaxed herself into a meditative state.†   (source)
  • Kai grinned, coaxing her back to arm's length, but he didn't tease her.†   (source)
  • She removed it all and coaxed the jelly onto one half of the half a plate.†   (source)
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