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Syllable division derived from spelling — this word is not in the pronouncing dictionary, so no phonetic transcription is shown rather than a guessed one.
svengali is a noun meaning "someone (usually maleficent) who tries to persuade or force another person to do his bidding". It carries 2 recorded senses.
someone (usually maleficent) who tries to persuade or force another person to do his bidding
the musician in a novel by George du Maurier who controls Trilby's singing hypnotically
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for svengali come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.