dupe
1 Americannoun
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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:
Is she letting the cameras in to dupe us, to make us feel sorry for someone whose actions caused real harm?
From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026
Before this season, savvy pitchers with expert command and dazzling spin had been able to dupe human umps into calling strikes on balls just off the plate, a time-honored tradition that had existed for generations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 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
People should also watch out for scams, with criminals attempting to dupe taxpayers by purporting to be from HMRC.
From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2026
He could not be accused of being a dupe of the government or of having gone soft.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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
Tourists duped into booking fake stays at 10 Downing Street.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
But the optimist in me still gets duped from time to time.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
Matthew's father was cleared of any involvement as he was also duped by Hayden-Johnson.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
On the other hand, if B takes the individualist option, at least I won’t be duped if I do, too.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Though there have been stories about kids cutting through the pouches or duping administrators by putting in decoy phones, those troublemakers amount to only a small percentage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 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
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
