How to use deceptive in a sentence
24 example sentences · adjective
Deceptive means likely or attempting to deceive. Example: “Appearances can be deceptive.”
Examples of deceptive by meaning
adjectiveLikely or attempting to deceive.
- Appearances can be deceptive.
More sentences with deceptive
- Among competing products, a generic substitute is one thing, whereas a deceptive lookalike is another.From the entry lookalike
- On the face of it, his case seemed hopeless. But appearances can be deceptive.From the entry on the face of it
- At this point they're hoping that the government will crack down and will put an end to deceptive rental offerings.From the entry crack down
- What makes these zombie businesses so deceptive is that they are usually happy zombies.2004, Sydney Finkelstein, Why Smart Executives Fail. From the entry zombie business
- Unfortunately, the object turned out to be only a “meteorwrong”—although a deceptive one.1969, Lincoln LaPaz, Topics in Meteoritics: Hunting Meteorites: Their Recovery, Use, and Abuse from Paleolithic to Present (University of…. From the entry meteorwrong
- Most deceptive pantdress is this deep-pleated one in bonded blue crepe from Stchli.1967, Ebony, volume 23, number 1, page 165. From the entry pantdress
- The deceptive MUTATE, or Complete Block-Change, is the "April Fool" idea of problemdom.1961, Saturday Night, volume 76, page 24. From the entry problemdom
- Velocitization refers simply to deceptive speeds possible on a modern expressway.1953, Mississippi Highways - Volumes 22-23, page 9. From the entry velocitization
- The man is a good female impersonator, with a deceptive voice.1911 August 19, “Fifth Avenue”, in Variety, volume 23, number 11, page 22. From the entry unwig
- She was an alcoholic, very chageable, very deceptive.2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 268. From the entry shapeshifter
- Obliterative coloration aims to make animals invisible, while mimicry is deceptive visibility aiming to make the animal appear as something else.2011, Matthew Brower, Developing Animals: Wildlife and Early American Photography, page 230. From the entry obliterative coloration
- This is the business of push-polling, a deceptive practice purporting to be a poll but actually designed to influence opinion.1999, United States Congress House Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government…. From the entry push-polling
- There are countermeasures to deceptive jamming, too, just as there are ECCCM to ECCM, all the way to infinity.1983, Michael Skinner, USAFE, a primer of modern air combat in Europe, page 69. From the entry ECCM
- The winners each year are public officials who have "perpetuated language that is grossly unfactual, deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing or self-contradictory."1982 December 18, Fernando Chang Muy, quoting National Council of Teachers of English, “A Lesson on Gay Students At Teachers' Convention”…. From the entry unfactual
- The individual or group at the top feed entirely on flattering and deceptive garbage (the Howard Hughes syndrome).1980, Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminati Papers. From the entry gloriosky
- While they may be legitimate strategies to preserve margins, consumers increasingly interpret these moves as deceptive, particularly when they are not openly acknowledged.2025 June, Els Breugelmans, Katrijn Gielens, “Navigating retail volatility”, in Journal of Retailing, volume 101, number 2, →DOI, page 156. From the entry shrinkflation
- There are deceptive tactics a ‘scam artist’ can employ, such as ‘book stuffing’, where duplicated or gibberish passages are deliberately inserted to inflate page counts.2023, Astrid Ensslin, Julia Round, Bronwen Thomas, editors, The Routledge Companion to Literary Media, :Taylor & Francis, page RA2-PT487. From the entry book stuffing
- In a Facebook post, I had warned Liza Soberano of the deceptive tactics of the group in recruiting showbiz icons into the communist terrorist insurgency.2021, Antonio Parlade Jr., “To catch a commie and friends by their mouths”, in The Manila Times. From the entry terrorist
- A prisoner of hope is an entrepreneur unknowingly trapped in a deceptive world where reality is masked by that person's desire to succeed.2013, Tom Panaggio, The Risk Advantage: Embracing the Entrepreneur's Unexpected Edge, →ISBN. From the entry prisoner of hope
- In this case you're unlucky enough to be driving through a neighborhood beset by deceptive appearances, but this misluck is corrected by your just.2007, Robert C. Roberts, W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues. From the entry misluck
- The philosopher Ludwig Klages saw graphology as a means to penetrate the deceptive self-presentation of his contemporaries and unveil their true character.2003, Michael Hau, The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930, page 50. From the entry graphology
- The sandbagging manager is similarly deceptive.1976, Richard H. Buskirk, Handbook of Managerial Tactics, Boston: Cahners Books, →ISBN, page 32. From the entry sandbag
- WASPy GWM, impractically educated, clever but uncynical, slender physique but good torso (otherwise mildly unprepossessing) — 30ish but the skinny beardless faun-like demeanor is initially deceptive.1977 April 30, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 14. From the entry faunlike
Meaning of deceptive
- adjective Likely or attempting to deceive.
Questions about deceptive in a sentence
- How do you use deceptive in a sentence?
- Deceptive is used as an adjective. For example: “Appearances can be deceptive.”
- What is a short sentence with deceptive?
- “Appearances can be deceptive.”
- What does deceptive mean?
- Deceptive means likely or attempting to deceive.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: deceptive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use deceptive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/deceptive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
