chicanery

noun

chi·​ca·​nery shi-ˈkā-nə-rē 

-ˈkān-,

chi-

plural chicaneries

1

: deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry : trickery

He wasn't above using chicanery to win votes.

2

: a piece of sharp practice (as at law) : trick

resorted to political chicaneries

financial chicaneries

Did you know?

Chicanery Has Roots in French

We have hardly any words that do so fully expresse the French clinquant, naiveté … chicaneries. So lamented English writer John Evelyn in a letter to Sir Peter Wyche in 1665. Evelyn and Wyche were members of a group called the Royal Society, which had formed a committee emulating the French Academy for the purpose of "improving the English language." We can surmise that, in Evelyn's estimation, the addition of chicanery to English from French was an improvement. What he apparently didn't realize was that English speakers had adopted the word from the French chicanerie before he wished for it; the term appears in English manuscripts dating from 1609. Similarly, clinquant ("glittering with gold or tinsel") dates from 1591. Naïveté, on the other hand, waited until 1673 to appear.

Synonyms

• artifice
• chicane
• gamesmanship
• hanky-panky
• jiggery-pokery
• jugglery
• legerdemain
• skulduggery
• skullduggery
• subterfuge
• trickery
• wile

Examples of chicanery in a Sentence

He wasn't above using chicanery to win votes.

that candidate only won the election through chicanery

Recent Examples on the Web

For this election, McDonnell could continue to resist his party’s entreaties, or Harris could win enough Electoral College votes to make any chicanery in Nebraska moot. —Michelle Goldberg, The Mercury News, 1 Oct. 2024

Just as generative AI is being used as a means, and excuse, to decimate labor forces across several other industries, the same is shaking out to be especially true for a game-development world already struggling with the cost of endless corporate chicanery. —Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 20 Sep. 2024

For years, various politicians and pundits have yelled themselves hoarse over the danger of normalizing Trump’s chicanery, casual mendacity, outrageous divisiveness and outright criminal behavior. —Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times, 12 Sep. 2024

Here, Peña Nieto and his administration’s institutional chicanery has opened the space and set precedents for López Obrador to further erode the democratic rules of the game. —Shannon K. O'Neil, Foreign Affairs, 2 July 2018

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French chicanerie "quibbling on minor points of law brought up to complicate a judicial case," going back to Middle French chiquanerie, from chicaner "to dispute by means of quibbles," earlier "to sue, prosecute" + -erie -ery — more at chicane entry 1

Note: Randle Cotgrave's French-English dictionary (1611) defines chicanerie as "wrangling, pettifogging; litigious, or craftie pleading; the perplexing of a cause with trickes; or the pestering thereof with (subtile, but) impertinent words."

First Known Use

1589, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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Kids Definition

chicanery

noun

chi·​ca·​nery shik-ˈān-(ə-)rē 

plural chicaneries

: clever trickery