It's the Word of the Day podcast for June 12th.

Today's word is blandishment, spelled B-L-A-N-D-I-H-M-E-N-T.

Blandishment is a noun.

Blandishments are nice things that you say or do to convince someone to do something.

Blandishment is usually used in the plural form.

Here's the word used in a sentence from the L.A. Times.

He sought to turn the attack around by saying his vast wealth, which has allowed him to

richly fund his political endeavors, made him immune to the blandishments of plutocrats and corporate

interests. When Star Wars' audiences first meet former smuggler Lando Calrissian, played iconically by Billy D. Williams in The Empire Strikes Back,

he is full of blandishments, offering flattery, telling Leah, you truly belong here with us among the clouds,

and gifts to our heroes in the form of food and drink. Will you join me for a little refreshment?

In order to entice them into what we soon discover is a trap. Notably, before the whole

sordid deal goes down and before Landau's eventual redemption, Han Solo calls him an old smoothie.

Landau's verbal smoothness can be linked to the word blandishment too. It was formed

from the verb blandish, meaning to coax with flattery. Blandish ultimately comes from the Latin

adjective Blondus, meaning influencing others by flattery. Source two of our adjective bland,

which typically describes things boring and flavorless,

but which can also mean smooth and soothing in manner or quality,

a meaning that also applies to everyone's favorite Cloud City administrator.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

Thank you. administrator. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.

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