Words That Mean Deceptive
Deception ranges from the elaborate to the merely evasive: duplicity is two-faced, specious only looks right, equivocate avoids answering at all.
18 words
- Charlatannoun
a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes
- Chicanerynoun
the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
- Cunningnoun
shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
- Deviousadjective
indirect in departing from the accepted or proper way; misleading
- Disingenuousadjective
not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of frankness; - David Cannadine
- Dissembleverb
make believe with the intent to deceive
- Duplicitynoun
acting in bad faith; deception by pretending to entertain one set of intentions while acting under the influence of another
- Equivocateverb
be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
- Fallaciousadjective
based on an incorrect or misleading notion or information
- Feignverb
make believe with the intent to deceive
- Guilenoun
the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
- Mendaciousadjective
intentionally untrue
- Prevaricateverb
be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
- Simulateverb
reproduce someone's behavior or looks
- Speciousadjective
based on pretense; deceptively pleasing
- Spuriousadjective
born out of wedlock; - E.A.Freeman
- Subterfugenoun
something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity
- Wilyadjective
marked by skill in deception
Study these against
A word’s meaning sharpens against its opposite. These sets are the ones worth holding beside deceptive.