Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a trick.

1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 13: But do not speak to me in Riddles, / I hate such damn’d confounded wheedles.
1683		W. Kennett (trans.) Erasmus Witt against Wisdom (1509) 35: [I]t is by such wheedles that the common people are best gull’d, and imposed upon.

2. (UK Und.) a sharper, a confidence trickster.

1673		Wycherley Gentleman Dancing-Master IV i: So young a wheedle.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Wheadle, c. a Sharper. To cut a Wheadle, c. to decoy, by Fawning and Insinuation.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) II [as cit. c.1698].
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: wheedle a sharper. To cut a wheedle, to decoy by fawning or insinuation, (cant).
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) [as cit. 1785].
1800		Sporting Mag. Apr. XVI 26/1: Handed Lady Wheedle and the young ladies to their carriage.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 35: Wheadle – a sharper.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].