deceptive

From Middle French déceptif, from Latin dēceptīvus, from dēcipiō (“I deceive”).

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈsɛp.tɪv/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɛptɪv

deceptive (comparative more deceptive, superlative most deceptive)

1. Likely or attempting to deceive.

   Synonyms: misleading; see also Thesaurus:deceptive

   deceptive practices

   Appearances can be deceptive.

   • 1653, John Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis‎^[1], London: William Hunt, Scene 24, page 521:

     […] others declare that no Creature can be made or transmuted into a better or worse, or transformed into another species […] and Martinus Delrio the Jesuit accounts this degeneration of Man into a Beast to be an illusion, deceptive and repugnant to Nature;

   • 1789, Frederick the Great, translated by Thomas Holcroft, The History of My Own Times‎^[2], London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Part 1, Chapter 12, p. 163:

     […] at the opening of the campaign, the French, after various deceptive attempts on different places, suddenly invested Tournay.

   • 1846, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, London: John W. Parker, 2nd ed., 1847, Preliminary Essay, Chapter 2, p. 10,^[3]

     language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes

   • 1978, Susan Sontag, chapter 2, in Illness as Metaphor‎^[4], New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 13:

     […] it is characteristic of TB that many of its symptoms are deceptive—liveliness that comes from enervation, rosy cheeks that look like a sign of health but come from fever—and an upsurge of vitality may be a sign of approaching death.