deceit

Noun

deceit (countable and uncountable, plural deceits)

1. An act or practice intended to deceive; a trick.
   • The whole conversation was merely a deceit.

   Synonyms:

   trick, fraud

2. An act of deceiving someone.
   • Upon his return he killed Eriphyle for her vanity and deceit of him and his father.1998, Mike Dixon-Kennedy, Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology, page 125

   Synonyms:

   deception, trickery, imposition, hype, dupery, fiddle, fetch, hocus-pocus, jugglery, legerdemain

3. (uncountable) The state of being deceitful or deceptive.
   • [T]he tvvo commended rules by him [Aristotle] ſet down, vvhereby the axioms of Sciences are precepted to be made convertible, and vvhich the latter men have not vvithout elegancy ſurnamed; the one the rule of truth, becauſe it preventeth deceipt; the other the rule of prudence, becauſe it freeth...1603 (date written), [Francis] Bacon, “Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature; with the Annotations of Hermes Stella. Chapter XI. The Chapter Immediately Following the Inventary; Being...
   • His mouth is full of curſing, and deceit, and fraud : vnder his tongue is miſchiefe and vanitie.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 10:7

   Synonyms:

   deceptiveness, deceitfulness, dissimulation, fraudulence, trickery, underhandedness

4. The tort or fraudulent representation of a material fact made with knowledge of its falsity, or recklessly, or without reasonable grounds for believing its truth and with intent to induce reliance on it; the plaintiff justifiably relies on the deception, to his injury.
5. (collective, rare) A group of lapwings.
   • Deceits of lapwings were preparing to migrate2025, Juhani Seppovaara, A Chess Master, page 16
   • These birds belonged to a deceit of lapwings that had been displaced from their tract of grasslands and marshy grounds by a housing development.2024 July 3, “Life of the lapwing”, in Saturday Express