trickery

English

Etymology

From trick +‎ -ery, first recorded in 1719. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Old French tricherie?”)

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɹɪ.kə.ɹi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

trickery (countable and uncountable, plural trickeries)

1. (countable, uncountable) Deception, deceit or underhanded behavior.
   • 1809, Washington Irving, chapter 47, in Knickerbocker's History of New York:

     [H]e did not wrap his rugged subject in silks and ermines, and other sickly trickeries of phrase.

   • 1852, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in Bleak House:

     In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good.

   • 1898, Bret Harte, “See UP”, in Stories in Light and Shadow:

     The miners found diversions even in his alleged frauds and trickeries . . . and were fond of relating with great gusto his evasion of the Foreign Miners' Tax.

2. (uncountable) The art of dressing up; imposture, pretense.
3. (uncountable) Artifice; the use of one or more stratagems.
   • 2012 April 21, Jonathan Jurejko, “Newcastle 3-0 Stoke”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     French winger Hatem Ben Arfa has also taken plenty of plaudits recently and he was the architect of the opening goal with some superb trickery on the left touchline.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:deception

Derived terms

• politrickery

Related terms

• treachery

Translations

underhanded behavior

• Armenian: (dialectal) օյինբազություն (hy) (ōyinbazutʻyun)
• Bengali: কেরদানী (bn) (kerdanī)
• Bulgarian: хитрина (bg) f (hitrina), измама (bg) f (izmama)
• Catalan: engany (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 權謀 / 权谋 (zh) (quánmóu), 詭計 / 诡计 (zh) (guǐjì)

• Dutch: bedriegerij (nl) f
• Finnish: hämäys (fi)
• French: tricherie (fr) f, magouillage (fr) m

  Old French: engin m, engignement m, tricerie f

• Galician: falcatrúa f, falcatruada f
• German: Betrügerei (de) f
• Greek:

  Ancient: μαγγανεία f (manganeía)

• Hindi: धोखा (hi) m (dhokhā), झाँसा (hi) m (jhā̃sā)
• Hungarian: fortélyosság (hu)
• Irish: aisiléireacht f, bobaireacht f, camrasáin m pl, ciolmamúta m, cleasaíocht f, cúinseacht f, draíodóireacht f, ealaíontacht f, gleacaíocht f, imeartas m, lúbaireacht f
• Italian: inganno (it) m, trappoleria f, accalappiamento m, accalappiatura f, tiro mancino (it) m
• Japanese: 細工 (ja) (saiku)
• Korean: 기만 (ko) (giman)
• Latin: stratēgēma n, dolus m, calumnia f, urbānitās f, circumventiō f
• Norwegian: fusk n
• Old English: fleard n
• Portuguese: fraude (pt) f, falcatrua (pt) f
• Russian: надува́тельство (ru) n (naduvátelʹstvo), уло́вка (ru) f (ulóvka), обма́н (ru) m (obmán)
• Spanish: triquiñuela (es) f, superchería (es), trapisonda (es)
• Tocharian B: kuhākäññe
• Ukrainian: обман (obman), ошуканство (ošukanstvo), шахрайство (šaxrajstvo)
• Urdu: دم m (dam)
• Welsh: twyll (cy) m or f, dichell f
• Yoruba: àgálámàṣà

References

• “trickery”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.