guile
Other forms: guiles
Use the noun guile for cunning, craftiness, and artful duplicity. Acting like you have a job on Wall Street when you're actually unemployed would take a lot of guile.
The noun guile has quite negative connotations, as it refers to the kind of knowledge and skill that can be used by comic book villains for evil and not good! People who have guile are also thought of as being wily (which is also a related word), sneaky, and deceitful. Those who are free of guile are pure and upstanding, and Henry David Thoreau affirms those feelings when he writes: "It is the work of a brave man surely, in whom there was no guile!"
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shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
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type of:
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astuteness, perspicaciousness, perspicacity, shrewdness
intelligence manifested by being astute (as in business dealings)
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astuteness, perspicaciousness, perspicacity, shrewdness
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the quality of being crafty
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synonyms:
craftiness, deceitfulness
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type of:
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disingenuousness
the quality of being disingenuous and lacking candor
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disingenuousness
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the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
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synonyms:
chicane, chicanery, shenanigan, trickery, wile
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types:
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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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goldbrick
anything that is supposed to be valuable but turns out to be worthless
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type of:
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deceit, deception, dissembling, dissimulation
the act of deceiving
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dupery, fraud, fraudulence, hoax, humbug, put-on
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Vocabulary lists containing guile
Following their victory in the "War of the Five Kings," the Lannisters consolidate their power on the Iron Throne. Although the war in the Seven Kingdoms has wound down, new conflicts arise in its bitter aftermath.
This nonfiction book recounts the story of how a 245 BCE sea journey from Athens to Alexandria inspired Eratosthenes of Cyrene to contemplate the stars and measure the distance around the earth.
This list covers "maggie and milly and molly and may," "The Raven," "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf," "The Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath," "The Highwayman," "We Wear the Mask," "William Shakespeare," and Twelfth Night.
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