device

1 a clever often underhanded means to achieve an end <used every device and stratagem he knew to prevent his son's marriage> Synonyms artifice, trick, dodge, fetch, flimflam, gambit, gimmick, jig, juggle, knack, play, ploy, scheme, shenanigan, sleight, stratagem, wileRelated Words bluff, end run, feint; cheating, chicanery, cozenage, craft, crookery, cunning, deception, dupery, duplicity, fakery, jugglery, legerdemain, skulduggery (or skullduggery), subterfuge, swindling, trickery; fraud, gaff, hoax, sham, swindle; blind, front, smoke screen

2 an article intended for use in work <the salesclerk tried to sell me a new device for grooming cats> Synonyms implement, instrument, tool, utensilRelated Words apparatus, appliance, mechanism; contraption, contrivance, gadget, gizmo (also gismo), jigger; accessory (also accessary), accoutrement (or accouterment), adjunct, appendage, attachment

3 devices pl  a habitual attraction to some activity or thing <left to her own devices she'd eat at a fast-food restaurant every night of the week> Synonyms affection, affinity, aptitude, bent, bias, bone, devices, disposition, genius, habitude, impulse, leaning, partiality, penchant, predilection, predisposition, proclivity, propensity, tendency, turnRelated Words favor, one-sidedness, partisanship, prejudice; endowment, faculty, flair, genius, gift, knack, talent; addiction, appetite, fancy, fondness, like, liking, preference, taste; forte, speciality, specialty; convention, custom, habit, pattern, practice (also practise), routine, trick, way, wont; eccentricity, idiosyncrasy, kink, oddity, peculiarity, quirk, singularityNear Antonyms allergy, averseness, aversion, disfavor, disinclination, dislike, disliking, disrelish, distaste; detachment, impartiality, neutrality, objectivity; apathy, disinterestedness, indifference, insouciance, nonchalance, unconcern