intrigue

• entrigue

Borrowed from French intrigue, from Italian intricare, from Latin intrīcō (“I entangle, perplex, embarrass”). Doublet of intricate.

• (noun) enPR: ĭn'trēg, IPA^(key): /ˈɪntɹiːɡ/

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• (verb) enPR: ĭntrēg', IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtɹiːɡ/

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• Rhymes: -iːɡ

intrigue (countable and uncountable, plural intrigues)

1. A complicated or clandestine plot or scheme intended to effect some purpose by secret artifice; conspiracy; stratagem.
   • 1858–1865, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Chapman and Hall, , →OCLC:

     lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic and foreign

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.
   • 1773, The Westminster Magazine, Or, The Pantheon of Taste:

     I often used to smile at a young Ensign of the Guards, who always popped his sword and watch when he wanted cash for an intrigue;

   • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 152:

     He proposed to call witnesses to show how the prisoner, a profligate and spendthrift, had been at the end of his financial tether, and had also been carrying on an intrigue with a certain Mrs. Raikes, a neighbouring farmer’s wife.

   • 1976, John Harold Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, page 245:

     In 1679 and 1680 there were persistent rumors of an intrigue between Mary, Lady Grey, and the Duke of Monmouth.

intrigue (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.
   • 1954, Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 170:

     Scenic illusions such as those caused by the haze, or the apparent diminution of scale where everything was enormous, intrigued Dutton.

   • 2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 19 February 2013, page 106:

     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.

3. (intransitive) To have clandestine or illicit intercourse.
4. (transitive) To fill with artifice and duplicity; to complicate.
   • 1533 (date written), Thomas More, “The Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance . Chapter XVIJ.”, in Wyllyam Rastell , editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, , London: Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published 30 April 1557, →OCLC, page 1004, column 2:

     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.

   • c. 1681, John Scott, The Christian Life from Its Beginning to Its Consummation in Glory :

     How doth it perplex and intrigue the whole course of your lives!

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “intrigue”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “intrigue”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.tʁiɡ/

• Audio:

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Deverbal from intriguer.

intrigue f (plural intrigues)

1. intrigue (all senses)
2. in particular, plot (the course of a story)

• → English: intrigue

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

intrigue

1. inflection of intriguer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “intrigue”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

intrigue

1. inflection of intrigar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

intrigue

1. inflection of intrigar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative