deceptive
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See also: déceptive
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle French déceptif, from Latin dēceptīvus, from dēcipiō (“I deceive”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
deceptive (comparative more deceptive, superlative most deceptive)
- Likely or attempting to deceive.
- Synonym: misleading
- deceptive practices
- Appearances can be deceptive.
- 1653, John Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis, London: William Hunt, Scene 24, p. 521,[1]
- […] others declare that no Creature can be made or transmuted into a better or worse, or transformed into another species […] and Martinus Delrio the Jesuit accounts this degeneration of Man into a Beast to be an illusion, deceptive and repugnant to Nature;
- 1789, Thomas Holcroft (translator), The History of My Own Times by Frederick the Great, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Part 1, Chapter 12, p. 163,[2]
- […] at the opening of the campaign, the French, after various deceptive attempts on different places, suddenly invested Tournay.
- 1846, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, London: John W. Parker, 2nd ed., 1847, Preliminary Essay, Chapter 2, p. 10,[3]
- language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes
- 1978, Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Chapter 2, p. 13,[4]
- […] it is characteristic of TB that many of its symptoms are deceptive—liveliness that comes from enervation, rosy cheeks that look like a sign of health but come from fever—and an upsurge of vitality may be a sign of approaching death.
Synonyms[edit]
- See also Thesaurus:deceptive
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
misleading, attempting to deceive
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Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *keh₂p-
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɛptɪv
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with usage examples