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An abortive attempt or action is cut short before it is finished; hence, it is unsuccessful.
When you abscond, you leave suddenly from a place that has imprisoned or persecuted you, or you leave from a place with something that doesn’t belong to you.
When you employ artifice, you use clever tricks and cunning to deceive someone.
A canard is a piece of news or information that is false; it is deliberately spread either to harm someone or as a hoax.
Candor is the quality of being honest and open in speech or action.
If you employ chicanery, you are devising and carrying out clever plans and trickery to cheat and deceive people.
Something that is clandestine is hidden or kept a secret, often because it is illegal.
If you collude with people, you work secretly with them to do something dishonest.
Complicity is the involvement in or knowledge of a situation that is illegal or bad.
If one person connives with another, they secretly plan to achieve something of mutual benefit, usually a thing that is illegal or immoral.
Covert activities or situations are secret and hidden.
Someone who is disingenuous is not straightforward or is dishonest in what they say or do.
To divulge something is to reveal information that was once private or secret.
If you accuse someone of duplicity, you think that they are dishonest and are intending to trick you.
When you are being evasive, you are trying to avoid trouble or not give a direct answer to a question.
If you exude a quality or feeling, people easily notice that you have a large quantity of it because it flows from you; if a smell or liquid exudes from something, it flows steadily and slowly from it.
A facade is a false outward appearance or way of behaving that hides what someone or something is really like.
A feint is the act of pretending to make a movement in one direction while actually moving in the other, especially to trick an opponent; a feint can also be a deceptive act meant to turn attention away from one’s true purpose.
If someone exhibits finesse in something, they do it with great skill and care; this most often refers to handling difficult situations that might easily offend people.
A gambit is something that you say or do in order to gain an advantage in a given situation or game.
People who are ingenuous are excessively trusting and believe almost everything that people tell them, especially because they have not had much life experience.
Something that is latent, such as an undiscovered talent or undiagnosed disease, exists but is not active or has not developed at the moment—it may develop or become active in the future.
A machination is a secretive plan or clever plot that is carefully designed to control events or people.
A mendacious person does not tell the truth.
A mountebank is a smooth-talking, dishonest person who tricks and cheats people.
Something that is ostensible appears to be true or is officially declared to be true but is really a cover for the actual truth of a situation.
If a mood or feeling is palpable, it is so strong and intense that it is easily noticed and is almost able to be physically felt.
A patent situation is one that is wide open and unconcealed; it is both evident and obvious.
If you prevaricate, you avoid giving a direct or honest answer, usually because you want to hide the truth or want to delay or avoid making a hard decision.
Propriety is behaving in a socially acceptable and appropriate way.
You show rectitude if you behave or conduct yourself in an honest and morally correct manner.
A semblance is an outward appearance of what is wanted or expected but is not exactly as hoped for.
Sophistry is the clever use of arguments that seem correct but are in fact unsound and misleading, used with the intent to deceive people.
Something statutory, such as the power given to a governor or president, is created, established, and controlled by rules and laws; hence, it has the full force of the law behind it and must be followed.
A surreptitious deed is done secretly to avoid bringing any attention to it.
Something that is tangible is able to be touched and thus is considered real.
Wiles are clever tricks or cunning schemes that are used to persuade someone to do what you want.
Noun
subterfuge
SUHB-ter-fyooj
Context
Diana always got her way, even if she had to use subterfuge or underhanded trickery to get it. She appeared to be kind, but underneath her golden surface lurked the mastermind of a clever manipulator gifted in schemes, deception, and subterfuge. She would often use subterfuge or secret plots that were highly successful in getting others to do what she wanted.
Quiz:Try again!
When is someone using subterfuge?
When they procrastinate often on school projects to their own detriment.
When they pretend to do one thing while actually doing another.
When they explain a complicated scientific process that makes it sound easy.
Subplot? HugeTurf! My neighbor's subterfuge to annoy me was to employ a subplot of pretending to learn how to golf and sending huge clumps of turf sailing over my fence!
Examples
The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge; it is always simple and direct.
— Calvin Coolidge, Thirtieth President of the United States
Today’s titans of industry are laid low not by ruthless competitors but by prosecutors gleefully waving transcripts of old e-mail, filled with suggestions of subterfuge.
—
New York Times
Simply put, for all the theater and subterfuge involved in politics, all politicians are emotionally attached to certain issues, ideas and policies over others.
—
The Economist
Despotic regimes, rather than ruling through absolute violence, typically rely on a noxious mixture of propaganda, patronage, apathy, political legitimacy, and a calibrated use of public and covert violence to generate a blanket of fear. However, it turns out that fear and apathy can be brittle. Dissidents can hammer the first cracks in the edifice by creating low-risk ways for citizens to signal solidarity with one another and see through a regime's subterfuge.
—
The Atlantic
