deceptive
See also: déceptive
English
Etymology
From Middle French déceptif, from Latin dēceptīvus, from dēcipiō (“I deceive”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /dɪˈsɛp.tɪv/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛptɪv
Adjective
deceptive (comparative more deceptive, superlative most deceptive)
- Likely or attempting to deceive.
- Synonyms: misleading; see also Thesaurus:deceptive
- deceptive practices
- Appearances can be deceptive.
- 1653, John Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis, London: William Hunt, Scene 24, p. 521,
- […] 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,
- […] 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,
- 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,
- […] 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.
Derived terms
- appearances are deceptive
- deceptive advertising
- deceptive cadence
- deceptive cognate
- deceptively
- deceptiveness
- deceptivity
Related terms
- deceit
- deceive
- deception
Translations
misleading, attempting to deceive
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