| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | attempt to conceal embarrassing or scandalous information |
| Synonyms: | burial, camouflage, closeting, complicity, concealment, conspiracy, disguising, dissimulation, evasion, front, hush-up, masking, placing under wraps, pretense, seal of secrecy, smoke-screen, veil of secrecy, whitewash |
| Main Entry: | deceit |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | particular type of trick, misleading |
| Synonyms: | artifice, blind, cheat, chicanery, crocodile tears, deception, dirty trick, dirty work, duplicity, fake, feint, flimflam, fraud, fraudulence, hoax, humbug, imposture, misrepresentation, pretense, ruse, sell, sellout, sham, shift, smoke and mirrors, snow job, soft soap, spoof, stratagem, subterfuge, sweet talk, swindle, trick, whitewash, wile |
| Main Entry: | deception |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | misleading; being dishonest |
| Synonyms: | beguilement, betrayal, blarney, boondoggle, cheat, circumvention, cozenage, craftiness, cunning, deceit, deceitfulness, deceptiveness, defraudation, dirt, disinformation, dissimulation, double-dealing, dupery, duplicity, equivocation, falsehood, fast one, flimflam, fraud, fraudulence, guile, hokum, hypocrisy, imposition, insincerity, juggling, legerdemain, lying, mendacity, pretense, prevarication, snow job, sophism, treachery, treason, trickery, trickiness, trumpery, untruth |
| Antonyms: | frankness, honesty, honor, openness, trustworthiness, truth, truthfulness, uprightness |
| Main Entry: | decoy |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | bait, trap |
| Synonyms: | allurement, attraction, beard, blind, blow off, booster, camouflage, catch, chicane, chicanery, come-on, deception, drawing card, ensnarement, enticement, facade, fake, front, imitation, inducement, inveiglement, lure, nark, plant, pretense, seducement, shill, sitting duck, snare, stick, stool pigeon, stoolie, temptation, trick, trickery |
| Main Entry: | disguise |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | covering, makeup for deception |
| Synonyms: | beard, blind, camouflage, charade, cloak, color, coloring, concealment, costume, counterfeit, cover-up, dissimulation, dress, facade, face, faking, false front, fig leaf, front*, get-up, guise, illusion, make-believe, mask, masquerade, pageant, pen name, pretense, pretension, pretentiousness, pseudonym, put-on, red herring, screen, semblance, smoke screen, trickery, veil, veneer |
| Main Entry: | euphemism |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | nice way of saying something |
| Synonyms: | circumlocution, delicacy, floridness, grandiloquence, inflation, pomposity, pretense, purism |
| Notes: | dysphemism is the substitution of a disagreeable word or phrase for a neutral or positive one (also a word or phrase so substituted); it is the opposite of euphemism |
| Main Entry: | facade |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | appearance, often deceptive |
| Synonyms: | beard, bluff, color, disguise, exterior, face, fake, false colors, false front, front, frontage, guise, look, mask, phony, pretense, put-on, semblance, show, veneer, window dressing |
| Antonyms: | character, personality |
| Main Entry: | fake |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | imposter, copy |
| Synonyms: | actor, bluffer, charlatan, cheat, counterfeit, deception, fabrication, faker, flimflam, forgery, four-flusher, fraud, gold brick, hoax, imitation, imposition, imposture, junque, make-believe, mountebank, phony, plant*, pretender, pretense, pseudo*, put-on, reproduction, scam, sham*, sleight, spoof, swindle, trick |
| Notes: | a fake is a work of art that is deliberately made or altered to appear better, older, or other than what it is; a forgery is a fraudulent imitation of another thing that already exists |
| Antonyms: | original, reality |
| Main Entry: | falsehood |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | lie |
| Synonyms: | canard, cover-up, deceit, deception, dishonesty, dissimulation, distortion, equivocation, erroneousness, error, fable, fabrication, fakery, fallaciousness, fallacy, falseness, falsity, feigning, fib, fibbery, fiction, figment, fraud, half truth, hogwash, line, mendacity, misstatement, perjury, pretense, prevarication, sham*, story, tale, tall tale, untruism, untruth, untruthfulness, whopper, yarn |
| Notes: | a falsehood is a false statement, a lie, or untruth; falseness is the state of being false or untrue |
| Antonyms: | truth |