lead on

verb

Definition of lead onnext
as in to tempt
to lead away from a usual or proper course by offering some pleasure or advantage a con man whose dupes are usually led on by their own greed and eagerness to turn an easy buck

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Examples Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for lead on
  1. tempt
  2. lure
  3. seduce
  4. persuade
  5. entice
Verb
  • They become tempted to sell the food the next day instead of discarding it.
    John Murn, New York Daily News, 4 Jan. 2025
  • The rule of thumb is that if you are tempted to drink alcohol, drink a non-alcoholic beverage instead.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2025
Definition of tempt
Verb
  • The badgers are no longer gassed, they are mostly now lured into fields at night and shot by specialist teams of exterminators.
    Anna Russell, The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2025
  • Geyser, along with her co-defendant Anissa Weier, lured Leutner into the woods during a sleepover in 2014 to play hide-and-seek.
    Samira Asma-Sadeque, People.com, 10 Jan. 2025
Definition of lure
Verb
  • Film The Eternal Becoming of Sofia Coppola Soraya Roberts Like so many of her heroines, the director seduces to control.
    hazlitt.net, hazlitt.net, 4 Jan. 2025
  • Football had already seduced the teenager when the father of a friend, who was the quarterback for the Everett High School team in Massachusetts where Sainristil starred, pulled some union ties for the cemetery job.
    Ben Standig, The Athletic, 3 Jan. 2025
Definition of seduce
Verb
  • As Trump has threatened to increase tariffs on all Chinese imports, China agreeing to sell TikTok to a US buyer could help persuade Trump to diminish those blows, the thinking goes.
    Ars Technica, Ars Technica, 14 Jan. 2025
  • Sometimes, for example, rogue loan officers or real estate agents persuade an elderly homeowner to sign false loan documents and keep the proceeds for themselves.
    LEW SICHELMAN, Miami Herald, 14 Jan. 2025
Definition of persuade
Verb
  • Police said the doctor used job recruiting websites to offer potential victims high hourly pay to entice them into working for him.
    Noah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, 30 Dec. 2024
  • To entice potential buyers, the suspect took videos of himself shooting the guns in East Palo Alto and San Jose, including open fields and a school campus, according to Shih.
    Jason Green, The Mercury News, 29 Dec. 2024
Definition of entice
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Thesaurus Entries Near lead on

leadoff

lead on

lead one down the garden path

See More Nearby Entries 

Cite this Entry

“Lead on.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/lead%20on. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.

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