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Deceive   /dɪsˈiv/   Listen
verb
Deceive  v. t.  (past & past part. deceived; pres. part. deceiving)  
1.
To lead into error; to cause to believe what is false, or disbelieve what is true; to impose upon; to mislead; to cheat; to disappoint; to delude; to insnare. "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." "Nimble jugglers that deceive the eye." "What can 'scape the eye Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart?"
2.
To beguile; to amuse, so as to divert the attention; to while away; to take away as if by deception. "These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hour."
3.
To deprive by fraud or stealth; to defraud. (Obs.) "Plant fruit trees in large borders, and set therein fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees."
Synonyms: Deceive, Delude, Mislead. Deceive is a general word applicable to any kind of misrepresentation affecting faith or life. To delude, primarily, is to make sport of, by deceiving, and is accomplished by playing upon one's imagination or credulity, as by exciting false hopes, causing him to undertake or expect what is impracticable, and making his failure ridiculous. It implies some infirmity of judgment in the victim, and intention to deceive in the deluder. But it is often used reflexively, indicating that a person's own weakness has made him the sport of others or of fortune; as, he deluded himself with a belief that luck would always favor him. To mislead is to lead, guide, or direct in a wrong way, either willfully or ignorantly.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Deceive" Quotes from Famous Books



... character, which, by the by, you are rehabilitating. I will go further. I will admit that it is not my concern to interfere in any ordinary amour you might undertake, but—I shall tell you this, my friend, to your face—that to deceive a lady of weak intellect, however beautiful, to make use of your position as her supposed husband, is not, save in the vital interests of his country, the ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... measure it by its effects, the woful and agonizing results it brings about; forgetting that these, like all results, or resultants, are the product of at least two forces,—the second, in this instance, being the unsuspecting and impetuous nature of Othello, Had Iago undertaken to deceive any other than such a man, he would have failed. Why, even simple-hearted Desdemona, who sees so little of him, suspects him; that poor goose, Roderigo, though blind with vanity and passion, again and again loses faith in him; and his wife knows him through and through. Believe me, he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... had been invented spaces were frequently left, both in the block books and in the earliest movable type, for the illumination by hand, of initial letters so as to deceive purchasers into the belief that the printed type which was patterned closely after the forms of letters employed in MSS. writings was the real thing. The learned soon discovered such frauds and thereafter these practices ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... with caution, and kept himself on his guard. They gave Polydamas several letters to Parmenio, as if from his friends, and to one of them they attached the seal of his son Philotas, the more completely to deceive the unhappy father. Polydamas was eleven days on his journey into Media. He had letters to Cleander, the governor of the province of Media, which contained the king's warrant for Parmenio's execution. He arrived at the house of Cleander in the night. He delivered his letters, and they ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... a shade," said Lydia, "as you might know by my helping you to deceive ma and your sister. But as to your goodness, I don't believe in it: so there! Don't tell me! People don't give up all at once, and go to bed at ten o'clock every night, and turn as good as all that. It's my belief you mean to bolt. What have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various


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