tempt.
To provoke someone to do wrong, especially by promising a reward; to entice.
Meaning & usage
To provoke someone to do wrong, especially by promising a reward; to entice.
She tempted me to eat the apple.
To attract; to allure.
Its glossy skin tempted me.
To provoke something; to court.
It would be tempting fate.
Where this word comes from
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”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.