chicane
Americannoun
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a bridge or whist hand without trumps
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motor racing a short section of sharp narrow bends formed by barriers placed on a motor-racing circuit to provide an additional test of driving skill
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a less common word for chicanery
verb
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(tr) to deceive or trick by chicanery
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(tr) to quibble about; cavil over
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(intr) to use tricks or chicanery
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of chicane
1665–75; < French chicane (noun), chicaner (v.), perhaps < Middle Low German schikken to arrange
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The layout of the circuit means that the batteries are used up on the long run from the first corner, La Source, to the Les Combes chicane.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Russell, too, was admonished by Wolff when he made a sarcastic comment about the location at which Antonelli had chosen to give back the lead after skipping the chicane.
From BBC ● May 25, 2026
But he did what he was told, before trying again at the chicane, only for Russell to hold him off.
From BBC ● May 24, 2026
But that was before the Miami Grand Prix moved in—before the artificial marina, the aqua chicane or the race weekends that packed in 275,000 fans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
A game consists of thirty points obtained by tricks alone, exclusive of any points counted for honours, chicane or slam.
From Bridge; its Principles and Rules of Play with Illustrative Hands and the Club Code of Bridge Laws by Elwell, J.B. (Joseph Bowne)
Carole Lombard, a $20,000,000 American in Cuba, is sorry Dancer George Raft was chicaned by a counterfeit lottery ticket bearing the same number as her genuine winning ticket.
From Time Magazine Archive
He had tried his best to get rid of them, advanced the rent, implored, chicaned, but all in vain.
From The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II by Lermina, Jules
The very possibility of public agency, by which such petitions could authentically arrive at Parliament, has been evaded and chicaned away.
From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06 (of 12) by Burke, Edmund
Chmielnicki, now doubly hateful to the Poles as being both a royalist and a Cossack, was again maltreated and chicaned, and only escaped from gaol by bribing his gaolers.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" by Various
I had heard enough to tell me I had been chicaned.
From The Bandolero A Marriage among the Mountains by Reid, Mayne
The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy or the path of little chicaning bargain-making.
From Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) Authors and Journalists by Dickinson, Asa Don
The man who goes to law surrenders his liberty of action and becomes the sport of chicaning lawyers and hair-splitting judges.
From Mr. Fortescue An Andean Romance by Westall, William
The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making.
From The Letters of Robert Burns by Burns, Robert
A Judge that goes upon chicaning is to be punished more severely than a highway Robber.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21 by Carlyle, Thomas
Whereby come Dissident ejected Priests; unconquerable Martyrs according to some, incurable chicaning Traitors according to others.
From The French Revolution by Carlyle, Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
