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100% GOOD (2 votes)antwoordLanguage Question
"to beckon" : meaning?

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AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgAugust 2020
"to beckon" sb with sth; doing sth / by doing sth / to do sth

it can mean to attract sb, usually in the sense of luring sb / sth or flirting with sb.

e.g. She beckoned me by wearing that low-cut dress and with her sultry smile. I just couldn't resist going over to speak with her.

This is perhaps the most common use of this word nowadays. "Quasi-formal" descriptions of getting lured by flirting

You can also use it in sentences like "The beach is beckoning me to swim and suntan". However, this sounds very formal or even archaic.

Also, "to beckon sb" has a generally archaic/formal meaning of "to signal to sb".

So, generally, "To beckon" is not used so much nowadays and now has a much more formal feel, but it would have been very normal vocabulary for my grandparents in normal conversation.
  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgAugust 2020
    Any learning material that is more than 5 or 10 years old is going to be out of date in some way

    There are also some very significant problems regarding how word lists are put together - a very long discussion.

    All of this is not even going into issues such as "formal vs informal", "British vs American" and "written vs. spoken".