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pied piper

1. A person who offers others strong yet delusive enticements.

2. One, such as a leader, who makes irresponsible promises.

[After The Pied Piper of Hamelin, title and hero of a poem by Robert Browning.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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