dupe

¹ American  

[doop, dyoop] / dup, djup /

noun

1. a person who is easily deceived or fooled; gull.

2. a person who unquestioningly or unwittingly serves a cause or another person.

   a dupe of the opponents.

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verb (used with object)

duped, duping

1. to make a dupe of; deceive; delude; trick.

dupe ² American  

[doop, dyoop] / dup, djup /

noun

1. duplicate.

2. Movies.

   1. a duplicate picture negative used for making additional release prints or for making special effects to be inserted in the release negative.

   2. the procedure for producing such a duplicate.

3. Television. a duplicate videotape obtained by electronic printing of the original videotape.

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verb (used with or without object)

duped, duping

1. to duplicate.

adjective

1. duplicate.

dupe British  

/ djuːp /

noun

1. a person who is easily deceived

2. a person who unwittingly serves as the tool of another person or power

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verb

1. (tr) to deceive, esp by trickery; make a dupe or tool of; cheat; fool

Other Word Forms

• dupability
  noun
• duper
  noun
• dupery
  noun
• dupable
  adjective
• undupable
  adjective

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!)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dupe duped duping

But VAR intervened, declaring that Embolo had crashed to the pitch in an effort to dupe the referee—an offense deemed worthy of ejection.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026

Now Zahid Hasan Akhand, who introduced himself as a barrister, was talking him through the different options and how to dupe the Home Office.

From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026

Large language models are used to write convincing emails to dupe people out of their money, causing an eight-fold increase in complaints from older Americans as they lost $4.9 billion in online fraud in 2025.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2026

It took a hit this week after former executives accused it of manipulating markets to dupe consumers into buying its products.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2025

But it was Heleen she’d wanted to dupe.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

Mitch Sylvestre, one of the leaders of the push to separate, told the Globe and Mail newspaper: "I feel duped."

From BBC ● May 22, 2026

But the victim, realizing he’d been duped, had reached out to police.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026

A month later, Aguilar realized he was probably never going to get the residency cards and contacted an attorney who confirmed he had been duped.

From Salon ● May 2, 2026

He has accepted that this might not be the last time he gets temporarily duped because he doesn’t want to let wariness get in the way of authentic opportunities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026

The sophisticated Griswold worried that too many intelligent citizens were being duped by what he considered ghostly nonsense.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock

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

Prosecutors accused him of duping investors after he failed to disclose that he was being paid by tech startup Servergy to recruit them.

From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2024

She told me she couldn’t stand the thought of Marcus duping more people into following him, and I didn’t argue with her.

From "Allegiant" by Veronica Roth

Related Words

• baffle
• bamboozle
• betray
• cheat
• deceive
• defraud
• delude
• hoodwink
• mislead
• swindle
• victimize