Definition of "intrigue"

intrigue

/ˈɪntɹiːɡ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural intrigues
1. A complicated or clandestine plot or scheme intended to effect some purpose by secret artifice; conspiracy; stratagem.
  Quotations
  […] lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic and foreign […]
  1858–1865, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Chapman and Hall, […]
2. The plot of a play, poem or romance; the series of complications in which a writer involves their imaginary characters.
3. Clandestine intercourse between persons; illicit intimacy; a liaison or affair.
  Quotations
  In 1679 and 1680 there were persistent rumors of an intrigue between Mary, Lady Grey, and the Duke of Monmouth.
  1976, John Harold Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, page 245
verb
third-person singular simple present intrigues, present participle intriguing, simple past and past participle intrigued
1. (intransitive) To conceive or carry out a secret plan intended to harm; to form a plot or scheme.
2. (transitive) To arouse the interest of; to fascinate.
  Quotations
  Scenic illusions such as those caused by the haze, or the apparent diminution of scale where everything was enormous, intrigued Dutton.
  1954, Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Houghton Mifflin, page 170
  These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story. And, on top of all that, they are ornaments; they entice and intrigue and sometimes delight.
  2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 19 February 2013, page 106
3. (intransitive) To have clandestine or illicit intercourse.
4. (transitive) To fill with artifice and duplicity; to complicate.
  Quotations
  And as wililye as thoſe ſhrewes that beguyle hym haue holpe hym to inuolue and intryke the matter: I ſhall vſe ſo playn and open a way therin, that euery man ſhall well ſee the trouth.
  1533 (date written), Thomas More, “The Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance […]. Chapter XVIJ.”, in Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, […], London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published April 1557, page 1004, column 2
  How doth it [sin] perplex and intrigue the whole course of your lives!
  c. 1681, John Scott, The Christian Life from Its Beginning to Its Consummation in Glory […]

Definition of "intrigue"

intrigue

noun

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Quotations

verb

Quotations

Quotations