hoodwink

verb

1. (archaic, transitive)To cover the eyes with, or as if with, a hood; to blindfold.

   “Some there are, that through feare anticipate the hang-mans hand; as he did, whoſe friends having obtained his pardon, and putting away the cloth wherewith he was hood-winkt, that he might heare it read, was found ſtarke dead vpon the ſcaffold, wounded onely by the ſtroke of imagination.”

   “It is the cuſtome of theſe maydes when they walke in the ſtreetes, to couer their faces with their vailes verecundiæ cauſâ [because of modesty], the ſtuffe being ſo thin and ſlight, that they may eaſily looke through it. For it is made of a pretty ſlender ſilke, and very finely curled: ſo that becauſe ſhe thus hoodwinketh her ſelfe, you can very ſeldome ſee her face at full when ſhe walketh abroad, though perhaps you earneſtly deſire it, but only a little glimpſe thereof.”

2. (figuratively, transitive)To deceive using a disguise; to bewile, dupe, mislead.

   “For, (having many times torne the vaile of modestie) it seemed, for a laste delight, that she delighted in infamy: which often she had used to her husbands shame, filling all mens eares (but his) with reproch; while he (hoodwinkt with kindnes) lest of all mẽ [men] knew who strake him.”

   “[T]o have to do with you, is to have to do with a man of business who is not to be hoodwinked.”

   “The earth is given over into the hand of the Wicked One, / Who hoodwinketh the faces of its judges. / If this be not so, where, who is HE?”

   “[L]ocal prophecy declares on Merlin's authority that when the tree falls Carmarthen will fall with it. Perhaps through an unconscious desire on the part of some patriotic citizens of averting the calamity by inducing the tree-spirit to transfer its abode, or else by otherwise hoodwinking the tree-spirit into forgetting that Merlin's Oak is dead, a vigorous and now flourishing young oak has been planted so directly beside it that its foliage embraces it.”

   “Ex-King Constantine would be regarded as an apt disciple so long as he succeeded in his purpose of hoodwinking the Allies.”

3. (archaic, figuratively, transitive)To hide or obscure.

   “Good my Lord, giue me thy fauour ſtil, / Be patient, for the prize Ile bring thee too / Shall hudwinke this miſchance: therefore ſpeake ſoftly, / All's huſht as midnight yet.”

   “The time was not yet come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be hoodwinked—when the harp of the poet was to be hung on the willows of Arno, and the right hand of the painter to forget its cunning.”

4. (intransitive, obsolete, rare)To close the eyes.

   “[W]herfore haue you ſate ſtill, and comply'd and hood-winkt, till the generall complaints of the Land have ſqeez'd you to a wretched, cold and hollow-hearted confeſſion of ſome Prelaticall riots both in this and other places of your Booke.”

noun

1. (countable)An act of hiding from sight, or something that cloaks or hides another thing from view.

   “What think you of Flattery, Fondneſs, and Tears? Thoſe are Hood-winks that Wives have ready upon every Occaſion.”

   “Here were old buildings, and mazy webs of wandering; soft cliff was handy, dark wood and rushing waters, tangled lanes, fuzzy corners, nooks of overhanging, depths of in-and-out hood-winks of nature, when she does not wish man to know everything about her.”

2. (British, obsolete, uncountable)The game of blind man's buff.

   “Whereas the Mountaine Nymphs, and thoſe that doe frequent / The Fountaines, Fields, and Groues, with wondrous meriment, / By Moone-ſhine many a night, doe giue each other chaſe, / At Hood-winke, Barley-breake, at Tick, or Priſon-baſe, / With tricks, and antique toyes, that one another mocke, / That skip from Crag to Crag, and leape from Rocke to Rocke.”