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 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
Perfetti: On our best day, we’re trying to dupe people into believing that it’s real life.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2026
And Ms. Millonzi wisely avoids turning Roderigo into an overly whiny and dim dupe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
Experts call this a type of fraud "social engineering" - where scammers dupe their victims using psychological manipulation, instilling fear and urgency.
From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2026
I was disgusted with myself for having let her dupe me.
From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin
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
In 2024, the British government released a video of a phone call in which the then foreign minister David Cameron was duped by someone posing as former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
The trial hinged on the question of whether Rogers was knowingly advancing China’s interests in sharing information, or had been duped into helping spies he believed were academics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 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
Speaking to the BBC last week, Kenya's Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said Nairobi had shut down more than 600 recruitment agencies suspected of duping Kenyans with promises of jobs overseas.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 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.
