dupe
1 Americannoun
-
a person who is easily deceived or fooled; gull.
-
a person who unquestioningly or unwittingly serves a cause or another person.
a dupe of the opponents.
verb (used with object)
noun
verb (used with or without object)
adjective
noun
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a person who is easily deceived
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a person who unwittingly serves as the tool of another person or power
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dupe1
First recorded in 1675–85; from French; Middle French duppe for unattested tête d'uppe “head of hoopoe,” i.e., “fool” (compare tête de fou ), from unattested Vulgar Latin uppa, Latin upupa “hoopoe,” a bird thought to be especially stupid; cf. hoopoe
Origin of dupe2
First recorded in 1895–90; by shortening
Explanation
A dupe is a furry, ceremonial hat worn during ancient pagan rituals...or not. Dupe actually means “trick or deceive.” We’re sorry we tried to dupe you into believing the wrong definition. Dupe can also refer to the victim of a trick or hoax, and — used in this sense — it sometimes conveys the idea that the victim is easily fooled. Dupe comes from the French word for a type of bird called the hoopoe, which has an extravagant crest and a reputation for being dim-witted. (And no, that's not another attempt to dupe you; it's the truth!)
Vocabulary lists containing dupe
Tricky Terms for April Fool's Day
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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Warm-up, List 1
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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:
The man arrested in that case allegedly used AI videos to dupe people before.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
The latest example of this creative approach is “Buddy,” in theaters Friday, which takes the aesthetics of a ’90s kids show like “Barney” or “Blue’s Clues” to carve out a monstrous dupe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
"If you're buying a single-ingredient product then you're probably going to be okay in using a dupe or something which is quite low cost because there's very little that can go wrong," she says.
From BBC ● Dec. 13, 2025
More than a quarter of UK shoppers say they've bought a skincare or makeup dupe.
From BBC ● Dec. 13, 2025
The worst thing in the hustler’s world was to be a dupe.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
But even if there’s no hard camera footage of Kao giving Collins burlap sacks full of cash, there is undoubtedly a story that she got duped into delivering federal dollars to a scammer.
From Slate ● Sep. 26, 2026
But the optimist in me still gets duped from time to time.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
Tourists duped into booking fake stays at 10 Downing Street.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
"Who was the White House hoaxer who duped PM?" asks the Daily Mail as it reports that Andy Burnham exchanged messages with a person posing as the chief of staff to US President Donald.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
“There’s a chance he’s not even homeless. I’ve been duped before,” he says.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
Scammers have become increasingly adept at duping customers into sending payments through elaborate social engineering schemes, including by developing romantic connections to their victims.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
He last month told the BBC that Kenyan authorities had closed more than 600 recruitment agencies suspected of duping Kenyans with promises of jobs overseas.
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
The agency, which protects consumers from unfair business practices, accused Amazon of duping people into automatically renewing their Amazon Prime subscriptions through “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2025
Alongside developing a relationship with fans and duping them into thinking Fegan was real Tegan, Fegan crossed other boundaries with Tegan's personhood.
From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2024
The entire food chain of intermediaries in the subprime mortgage market was duping itself with the same trick, using the foreshortened, statistically meaningless past to predict the future.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
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.
