noun
Synonym Usage
See duplicity.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of trickery
Explanation
When tricks of any kind are used to fool or deceive someone, especially for financial gain, that's trickery. If you suspect that a cute kid has scammed you out of twenty dollars, you have every right to accuse him of trickery. Trickery is using pretense or sleight of hand or fast talking to cheat a person out of some amount of money, the way a card sharp or a con man might do. The earliest use of trick was in this negative sense — a mean ruse or cheat. Trickery simply adds the Middle English ery to the end to form a new noun.
Vocabulary lists containing trickery
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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:
He appears to have dedicated much of his time there to putting out videos and written posts about demons and their trickery.
From Slate ● Jun. 8, 2026
Mr. Lanchester is a magnetic writer who combines the skills of a social realist with this penchant for Nabokovian black humor and narrative trickery.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
A real showboater is someone whose very mention elicits warm, fuzzy memories of flamboyant flicks and trickery.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026
The final shots, of Robert flying in an airplane for the first time, were captured with practical trickery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 16, 2026
Emma was not convinced one way or the other, though she remained cynical and thought it was almost certainly trickery.
From "Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith" by Deborah Heiligman
But trickeries of some sort existed on all the popular TV quizzes, not just Twenty-One.
From Time Magazine Archive
All sorts of trickeries, too; he sent spurious telegrams and got fictitious items into the newspapers; he lied through every medium known to the highest civilization.
From Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) by Woolson, Constance Fenimore
As thou mightst think, it grew to be their favorite coigne for playing their dragon and princess trickeries.
From A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales by Rives, Amélie
By now Forbes was familiar enough with the trickeries of the steps to leave his feet to their own devices.
From What Will People Say? A novel by Hughes, Rupert
After this Jacob served for Rachel also, and then the remainder of the chapter of Jacob’s servitude to Laban is but the recital of a series of frauds and trickeries.
From Theological Essays by Bradlaugh, Charles
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.
