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deceptive

[dih-sep-tiv]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

apt or tending to deceive: The enemy's peaceful overtures may be deceptive.

perceptually misleading: It looks like a curved line, but it's deceptive.

Origin:
1605–15; < Medieval Latin dēceptīvus, equivalent to Latin dēcept(us) (see deception) + -īvus -ive

Related forms

de·cep·tive·ly, adverb

de·cep·tive·ness, noun

non·de·cep·tive, adjective

non·de·cep·tive·ly, adverb

non·de·cep·tive·ness, noun

EXPAND

un·de·cep·tive, adjective

un·de·cep·tive·ly, adverb

un·de·cep·tive·ness, noun

COLLAPSE

Synonyms
1. delusive, fallacious, specious.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Deceptive is always a great word to know.

So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

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Example Sentences

From the beginning, deceptive research yielded rich scientific rewards.

English presents their biggest problem, and the problem is deceptive.

But appearances and rhetoric may be a little deceptive.

EXPAND

From the beginning, deceptive research yielded rich scientific rewards.

English presents their biggest problem, and the problem is deceptive.

But appearances and rhetoric may be a little deceptive.

My family's lines prove that skin color is deceptive and that race is a social, not a biological, construct.

Many species have developed deceptive appearances to fool would-be predators by taking on the look of other unpalatable species.

The group's rules prohibit advertising that makes exaggerated claims for returns on investment, or is misleading or deceptive.

And so, as with other businesses, the chances of deceptive ads have increased.

Increasing the size of the pool is not an excuse for a deceptive job description.

Although all the countries seem stable for now, the calm is deceptive.

Often advertising claims are confusing or downright deceptive.

Hide the decline is not simply about a deceptive elimination of some inconvenient data.

Through deceptive marketing techniques, they've turned this requirement into a multimillion-dollar business.

The states said loans known as option adjustable-rate loans, or pick-a-payment mortgages, were deceptive.

Deceptive advertising isn't anything new, and it's not the end of the world.

Over a short period, investment returns can be a deceptive measure of astuteness.

As the truth is slowly revealed, such deceptive practices are being exposed.

Craigslist also claims that eBay used deceptive tactics to direct traffic away from its site.

In addition to the colleges that encouraged fraud, all the colleges made some deceptive statements.

My proposal's deceptive simplicity hides the difficulty of putting it into practice.

The opposition thinks first impressions can be deceptive.

That, too, can be deceptive as a true measure of our worth.

The problem of deceptive advertising may only get worse as the use of herbal remedies grows.

To a professor, the term might carry connotations of profit motives and deceptive practices.

Even in the hopeful professions, such as politics, appearances can be deceptive.

Some good research comes from our public and private not for profit schools, but do does some poor and deceptive research, too.

The airlines should stop immediately their deceptive pricing policies.

There's nothing particularly deceptive about kabuki.

His other ideas would have negligible impacts on the deficit, or are in fact deceptive.

Unfortunately, the lessons that the past teaches are seldom precise and are often deceptive.

The complaint expanded charges of deceptive practices brought against the company last year.

The focus of the current thread is about a possibly deceptive hiring practice.

Very deceptive article, creating and destroying a false argument to make its point.

It's a punishment for repeated and deceptive editing of articles related to the.

Congress and federal regulators need to do a lot more to make sure credit card companies stop using deceptive practices.

The cited research doesn't seem to deal with deceptive responses on moral questions.

Already, the allegedly infringing and deceptive website.

The agency says it is pursuing more deceptive e-mail cases and might take additional legal action.

Rather, it's the proliferation of a new category of deceptive software that takes.

Few players realize that there are considerable opportunities for effective deceptive plays in the trump suit.

Unauthorized multiple submissions are inherently deceptive.

Natural selection may favor animals that use deceptive tactics, especially when a croak is bigger than its frog.

It's always jarring to see a flagrantly deceptive ad on a legitimate site.

All the suits contended that the company had used deceptive sales practices.

Some characteristics of nonacademic work are deceptive in their apparent similarity to academic life.

The company has come under fire for everything from deceptive marketing to losing payments.

Create randomized or intentionally deceptive file names or random or intentionally deceptive directory.

Deliver them from their torturous and deceptive lives.

We must hurry to find a better wording to my question because the soupboy understood that it is formulated in a deceptive way:.

The settlement agreement requires that the sites refrain from launching such deceptive software into their customers' computers.

So it seems to me that you were either being woefully ignorant, or deliberately deceptive.

We are especially concerned with potentially deceptive or fraudulent advertising and recruiting tactics.

The average may also be deceptive or unrepresentative of this kind of group.

To judge a person immediately by his or her appearance can be deceptive.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

deceptive (dɪˈsɛptɪv)

—*adj*
1.	likely or designed to deceive; misleading: appearances can be deceptive
2.	music (of a cadence) another word for interrupted

de'ceptively

—*adv*

de'ceptiveness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

deceptive

1610s, from Fr. deceptif (late 14c.), from M.L. deceptivus, from decept-, pp. stem of L. decipere (see deceive). Earlier in this sense was deceptious (c.1600), from Fr. deceptieux, from M.L. deceptiosus, from deceptionem. Related: Deceptively (1825).

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Matching Quote

"Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

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