deceit
deceits
Deceit is purposeful falsehood. If you want to keep your true love true to you, avoid any acts of deceit.
Deceit comes from the Latin for "cheat." When you deceive someone, you give them a false impression, mislead them so as to get away with something bad. If a person speaks in a way that gives a false impression, we call the way he speaks "deceptive." If someone pretends to be someone else, that’s an act of deceit, like when a thief pretends to be a valet parking attendant and takes off with your car.
Definitions of deceit
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the quality of being fraudulent
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synonyms:
fraudulence
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type of:
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dishonesty
the quality of being dishonest
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dishonesty
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a misleading falsehood
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synonyms:
deception, misrepresentation
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types:
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bill of goods
communication (written or spoken) that persuades someone to accept something untrue or undesirable
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humbug, snake oil
communication (written or spoken) intended to deceive
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half-truth
a partially true statement intended to deceive or mislead
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facade, window dressing
a showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant
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exaggeration, magnification, overstatement
making to seem more important than it really is
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snow job
a long and elaborate misrepresentation
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dissembling, feigning, pretence, pretense
pretending with intention to deceive
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blind, subterfuge
something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity
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hanky panky, hocus-pocus, jiggery-pokery, skulduggery, skullduggery, slickness, trickery
verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way
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duplicity, fraudulence
a fraudulent or duplicitous representation
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equivocation, evasion
a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth
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bluff
pretense that your position is stronger than it really is
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pretext, stalking-horse
something serving to conceal plans; a fictitious reason that is concocted in order to conceal the real reason
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hypocrisy, lip service
an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction
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circumlocution, indirect expression
an indirect way of expressing something
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doublespeak
any language that pretends to communicate but actually does not
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hedge, hedging
an intentionally noncommittal or ambiguous statement
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cavil, quibble, quiddity
an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections
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the act of deceiving
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synonyms:
deception, dissembling, dissimulation
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types:
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fakery
the act of faking (or the product of faking)
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indirection
deceitful action that is not straightforward
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chicane, chicanery, guile, shenanigan, trickery, wile
the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
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double-dealing, duplicity
acting in bad faith; deception by pretending to entertain one set of intentions while acting under the influence of another
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cheat, cheating
a deception for profit to yourself
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delusion, head game, illusion
the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas
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feigning, pretence, pretending, pretense, simulation
the act of giving a false appearance
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impersonation, imposture
pretending to be another person
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obscurantism
a deliberate act intended to make something obscure
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bluff, four flush
the act of bluffing in poker; deception by a false show of confidence in the strength of your cards
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take-in
the act of taking in as by fooling or cheating or swindling someone
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dupery, fraud, fraudulence, hoax, humbug, put-on
something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage
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jugglery
artful trickery designed to achieve an end
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gerrymander
an act of gerrymandering (dividing a voting area so as to give your own party an unfair advantage)
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appearance, show
pretending that something is the case in order to make a good impression
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make-believe, pretend
the enactment of a pretense
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affectation, affectedness, mannerism, pose
a deliberate pretense or exaggerated display
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masquerade
making a false outward show
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type of:
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falsification, misrepresentation
a willful perversion of facts
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘deceit'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
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