Word.ws English Dictionary

phenakism

phenakism noun: deception; trickery.

Noun

phenakism (plural phenakisms)

  1. (dated) deception; trickery.
    • The people of England are at once too discerning and too truth-loving to tolerate a system of phenakism and reserve, whether in the interest of Popery or infidelity.1859, Rev. Baden Powell, The Quarterly Review, The Order of Nature, page 442

Forms of phenakism

pluralphenakisms

Origin of phenakism

From Ancient Greek φενακιστής (phenakistḗs, “cheat, imposter”).

Questions about phenakism

What does phenakism mean?
Phenakism means deception; trickery.
What part of speech is phenakism?
Phenakism is a noun.
What is the plural of phenakism?
The plural of phenakism is phenakisms.

Words near phenakism in the dictionary

  1. phenagle
  2. phenagled
  3. phenagles
  4. phenagling
  5. phenaglycodol
  6. phenakism
  7. phenakisms
  8. phenakistiscope
  9. phenakistiscopes
  10. phenakistiscopic
  11. phenakistoscope

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phenakism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “phenakism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phenakism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.