chicanery

Meaning

1. Deception by the use of trickery, quibbling, or subterfuge.
2. An individual act of trickery or deception.
3. The quality of being inclined to trickery or deceitfulness.
4. A slick performance by a lawyer.

Synonyms

chicane

trick

deception

trickery

guile

deceit

artifice

intrigue

pettifogging

play on words

shenanigan

sophistry

stratagem

swindle

wile

pettifoggery

dupery

fake

frame-up

fraud

fraudulence

bunco

gyp

indirection

insincerity

underhand action

knavery

lies

machination

mendacity

perfidy

take-in

dirty pool

prank

prevarication

quibble

ruse

sellout

sham

traitorousness

sophism

false pretence

false pretense

subterfuge

subversiveness

positive fraud

treachery

treason

betrayal

barratry

tricks

dishonest action

wrangling

bunko

double cross

fraud in fact

cheat

charlatanism

connivance

crookedness

cavilling

bungling

deceptiveness

deke

dishonesty

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʃɪˈkeɪn(ə)ɹi/

Etymology

From French chicanerie (“trickery”), from chicaner, borrowed from Middle Low German schicken, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *skikkijan, from Proto-Germanic *skikkijaną. Related to German schicken (“to send, ship”), Middle English skekken (“to send forth, issue”).