chicanery
Americannoun
-
verbal deception or trickery, esp in legal quibbling; dishonest or sharp practice
-
a trick, deception, or quibble
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of chicanery
From the French word chicanerie, dating back to 1605–15. See chicane, -ery
Explanation
Have you ever gotten the sense that politicians or corporate leaders will say anything to turn public opinion their way? This tricky kind of deceit and manipulation is called chicanery. Besides chicanery, another funny-sounding word for trickery is shenanigans. Whereas the former is always used in the singular and involves deceptive language, the latter is usually used in the plural and refers to the actions of a person. Your crazy neighbor is up to his old shenanigans if he has begun doing weird stuff again, but if a politician's chicanery is exposed, he will lose public trust and not be returned to office in the next election cycle.
Vocabulary lists containing chicanery
100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know
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"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 1
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"Bones" Producer's Lawsuit Full of Great Vocabulary
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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:
Even “all deeply buried nuclear facilities” would leave room for chicanery, as the facility beneath Pickaxe Mountain could be excluded as a “construction site.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
Did he feel he needed to shake up his players by warning them of supposed chicanery?
From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026
By highlighting some of this procedural chicanery, Kagan’s dissent in Mirabelli laid bare, in remarkably blunt fashion, the tip of a dreadful iceberg.
From Slate ● Mar. 4, 2026
You can go on with your life free of other people’s chicanery and hopefully enjoy the last days of 2025 without being caught up in a “L’Affaire du Vin Manquant.”
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 24, 2025
The amount of chicanery it would take to slip prom past her mother ... it boggled the mind.
From "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell
The business reforms of the ’30s have proven unequal to chicaneries of later ages, and periodically must be updated.
From Slate ● Oct. 13, 2011
Again & again she was caught red-handed in chicaneries that would have made a carnival rifter blush.
From Time Magazine Archive
He knew Renardet was not a Republican, and he knew all the tricks and chicaneries employed at elections.
From The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 Une Vie and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant
The princess would know that her chicaneries must cease--that if I wrote to Altenhof and told the whole truth, there would be an explosion.
From Vineta The Phantom City by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner
She came well prepared for a bout, and blushed not at the subterfuges and mean, paltry artifices, aye, a full battery of chicaneries that awaited her use, as she crossed the maid's chamber threshold.
From Mistress Penwick by Dutton Payne
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.
