Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use ploy in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun, verb

Ploy means a tactic, strategy, or scheme. Example: “The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.”

Examples of ploy by meaning

nounA tactic, strategy, or scheme.

  • The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.
  • Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans.2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70

More sentences with ploy

  • As a ploy to discredit the reformist politician, the opposing party had hired a lookalike to act as his evil twin and be seen in a variety of compromising situations.From the entry evil twin
  • There were underhanded ploys that were effective but were deplored by the hospital administration.2014, Carl Douglass, The Long Climb, →ISBN. From the entry underhanded
  • O, Life, pack up your plushen ploys — I'll forfeit all for my four boys!2013, Cledith Cassidy Tolbert, A Mother's Hands, page 89. From the entry plushen
  • Was it some sort of marketing ploy to drive the declining tourist revenues?2009 August 15, Louisa Lim, “The ‘poshtel’”, in The Star, Malaysia. From the entry poshtel
  • The Spockian ploy is to announce one's sins and then go right ahead and compound them.1968, Frederick C. Crews, The Patch Commission, page 25. From the entry Spockian
  • This is a ploy of my own on which no man follows me."1902 January, John Buchan, “The Outgoing of the Tide”, in The Watcher by the Threshold, and Other Tales, Edinburgh; London: William…. From the entry bide
  • Chris, Jessenia, Alana situation--I don't think there was any ploy.2021 September 11, “maybe i'm reaching..? but i feel like serena may have been IN on brendan/pieper scandal...”, in Reddit…. From the entry flirtship
  • In its more harmless form, fauxtomation is merely a marketing ploy, a way to make pointless products seem cutting-edge.2018 August, Astra Taylor, “The Automation Charade”, in Logic Magazine, number 5. From the entry fauxtomation
  • Weiss and his assistant, Roy Hamey, worked a ploy on the players that was particularly effective in keeping the salaries low.2010, Peter Golenbock, Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 493. From the entry good cop-bad cop
  • His Holocaust denial is a flagrant ploy—the easiest way to get a rise out of the Jewish community.2007 September 26, Joe Klein, “Inflating a Little Man”, in Time. From the entry get a rise out of
  • One might view this attempt to ensure the scarcity of a multiple as both a marketing ploy and form of elitism.1996, Southeastern College Art Conference Review. From the entry multiple
  • Their favorite harassment ploy is to covertly play “good cop-bad cop” in joint actions with openly aggressive environmental groups.1994, Ron Arnold, Alan M. Gottlieb, Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America, Merril Press, →ISBN. From the entry good cop-bad cop
  • It was the sure-fire sign of a business — or an individual — in financial distress: The old check-is-in-the-mail ploy.1992, Donald L. Barlett with James B. Steele, America: What Went Wrong?, page 155. From the entry check is in the mail
  • Mongers deign to notice his work, they dismiss him as a "cult writer," another of their standard ploys.1978 April 15, Mitzel, “An Evening and an Afternoon with James Purdy”, in Gay Community News, page 10. From the entry instrument
  • Bluff and counterbluff, ploy and counterploy.1971, William O. Johnson, Super Spectator and the Electric Lilliputians, page 114. From the entry counterploy
  • The Sirens, gleeful scourge of mariners, beguiling bane and cruelhearted joy, whom no man could abandon once he'd heard them, were left, they say, through sly Ulysses' ploy.2014, Martial, Selected Epigrams, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry cruelhearted
  • Africans need not continue to fear what they see and interpret as hidden American intentions to neo-colonize and further exploit their continent, directly or through proxies, lackeys, and ploys.2009 July 13, Dr. Kofi J. Roberts, The Sargasso Bridge: America Speaks, Africa Answers, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 85. From the entry neo-colonize
  • Despite Healy's argument that the Liberty Fund would go to worthwhile causes, many felt the Red Cross had deliberately misled donors by using September 11th in a bait-and-switch ploy.2001 November 14, Jessica Reaves, “Red Faces at the Red Cross”, in Time. From the entry bait-and-switch

Meaning of ploy

  1. noun A tactic, strategy, or scheme.
  2. noun Sport; frolic.
  3. noun Employment.

Full definition of ploy

Questions about ploy in a sentence

How do you use ploy in a sentence?
Ploy is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.”
What is a short sentence with ploy?
“Bluff and counterbluff, ploy and counterploy.”
What does ploy mean?
Ploy means a tactic, strategy, or scheme.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ploy (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 ploy in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/ploy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.