From Anglo-Norman lure, from Old French loirre (Modern French leurre), from Frankish *lōþr, from Proto-Germanic *lōþr-, perhaps ultimately related to *laþō (“invitation, calling”), or from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to hide”). Compare English allure, also from Old French. Probably related to German Luder (“bait”).

• (Received Pronunciation)
  • (yod-dropping)
    • (without the pour–poor merger) IPA^(key): /lʊə/
    • (pour–poor merger) IPA^(key): /lɔː/
  • (without yod-dropping)
    • IPA^(key): /ljʊə/
  • IPA^(key): /lɜː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /lʊəɹ/, /lɝ/

  Audio (US):

  (file)

• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /lʉːɹ/
• Homophones: lore (some speakers with the pour–poor merger); law (non-rhotic, pour–poor merger)
• Rhymes: -ʊə(ɹ), -ɔː(ɹ), -ɜː(ɹ)

lure (plural lures)

1. (also figurative) Something that tempts or attracts, especially one with a promise of reward or pleasure.
   • 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 2:

     How many have with a smile made small account
     Of Beauty and her lures

2. (fishing) An artificial bait attached to a fishing line to attract fish.
3. (falconry) A bunch of feathers attached to a line, used in falconry to recall the hawk.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 222:

     My Faulcon now is ſharpe and paſſing emptie, / And til ſhe ſtoope ſhe muſt not be full gorg'd, / For then ſhe never lookes upon her lure.

4. A velvet smoothing brush.^[1]

lure (third-person singular simple present lures, present participle luring, simple past and past participle lured)

1. (transitive) To attract by temptation, appeal, or guile.

   Synonym: entice

   • 2012, Kate Bassett, “Mid-Seventies Onwards: Operatic beginnings and The Body in Question”, in In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller, London: Oberon Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 219:

     It had been sixteen years since the BBC’s Grace Wyndham Goldie wrote her internal memo about luring him back to make sociological/scientific TV programmes. Now a second note had circulated, from the science department, proposing that he should present the Corporation’s next educative megaseries.

   • 2014, Michel Clasquin-Johnson, What is the difference between a research professor and a professor?:

     Professor is what you become after teaching for twenty to thirty years. Research Professor is what you then want to become, so you can finally stop worrying about students and do the research that lured you into academia in the first place!

2. (transitive) To attract fish with a lure.
3. (transitive, falconry) To recall a hawk with a lure.

• allure

Borrowed from Icelandic lúðr.

lure (plural lures)

1. (music) Alternative form of lur.

• Rule, UERL, ReLU, Ruel, rule

lure

1. definite singular of lur
2. plural of lur

From Middle Low German luren.

lure (imperative lur, present tense lurer, passive lures, simple past lurte, past participle lurt, present participle lurende)

1. to deceive, trick
2. to lurk
3. to wonder (på / about)

• “lure” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

lure

1. definite of lur
2. plural of lur

lure (present tense lurar or lurer, past tense lura or lurte, past participle lura or lurt, present participle lurande, imperative lur)

1. alternative form of lura

From Frankish *lōþr, from Proto-Germanic *lōþr-, perhaps ultimately related to *laþō (“invitation, calling”), or from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to hide”).

lure oblique singular, f (oblique plural lures, nominative singular lure, nominative plural lures)

1. lure (bunch of feathers attached to a line, used in falconry to recall the hawk)

• English: lure

• lure on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
• “lure”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Friedrich Kluge (1883), “Luder”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891