English Dictionary

DECEIT

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does deceit mean? 

DECEIT (noun)
  The noun DECEIT has 3 senses:

1. the quality of being fraudulentplay

2. a misleading falsehoodplay

3. the act of deceivingplay

  Familiarity information: DECEIT used as a noun is uncommon.


 Dictionary entry details 


DECEIT (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being fraudulent

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

deceit; fraudulence

Hypernyms ("deceit" is a kind of...):

dishonesty (the quality of being dishonest)


Sense 2

Meaning:

A misleading falsehood

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

deceit; deception; misrepresentation

Hypernyms ("deceit" is a kind of...):

falsehood; falsity; untruth (a false statement)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "deceit"):

equivocation; evasion (a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth)

duplicity; fraudulence (a fraudulent or duplicitous representation)

hanky panky; hocus-pocus; jiggery-pokery; skulduggery; skullduggery; slickness; trickery (verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way)

blind; subterfuge (something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity)

dissembling; feigning; pretence; pretense (pretending with intention to deceive)

snow job (a long and elaborate misrepresentation)

exaggeration; magnification; overstatement (making to seem more important than it really is)

facade; window dressing (a showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant)

half-truth (a partially true statement intended to deceive or mislead)

humbug; snake oil (communication (written or spoken) intended to deceive)

bill of goods (communication (written or spoken) that persuades someone to accept something untrue or undesirable)


Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of deceiving

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

deceit; deception; dissembling; dissimulation

Hypernyms ("deceit" is a kind of...):

falsification; misrepresentation (a willful perversion of facts)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "deceit"):

indirection (deceitful action that is not straightforward)

chicane; chicanery; guile; shenanigan; trickery; wile (the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them))

double-dealing; duplicity (acting in bad faith; deception by pretending to entertain one set of intentions while acting under the influence of another)

cheat; cheating (a deception for profit to yourself)

delusion; head game; illusion (the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas)

feigning; pretence; pretending; pretense; simulation (the act of giving a false appearance)

impersonation; imposture (pretending to be another person)

obscurantism (a deliberate act intended to make something obscure)

bluff; four flush (the act of bluffing in poker; deception by a false show of confidence in the strength of your cards)

take-in (the act of taking in as by fooling or cheating or swindling someone)

fakery (the act of faking (or the product of faking))


 Context examples 


He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often successfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was a life of deceit!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But he, the honest seaman, so incapable of deceit or affectation that he could not suspect it in others, ran madly to the bell, shouting for the maid, the doctor, and the smelling-salts, with incoherent words of grief, and such passionate terms of emotion that my father thought it more discreet to twitch me by the sleeve as a signal that we should steal from the room.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mrs. Grant, really eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What has it been but a system of hypocrisy and deceit,—espionage, and treachery?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them).

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G—, a naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit.'

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." (English proverb)

"The moon is not shamed by the barking of dogs." (Native American proverb, tribe unknown)

"Life is made of two days. One which is sweet and the other is bitter." (Arabic proverb)

"He who eats holy bread has to deserve it." (Corsican proverb)



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