scheming

adjective

schem·​ing ˈskē-miŋ 

: given to forming schemes

especially : devious

Synonyms of scheming

• cunning
• cute
• slick

Examples of scheming in a Sentence

the novel is about an elderly man and his scheming son who is impatient to inherit the family fortune

Recent Examples on the Web

Meanwhile, the palace has been besieged by loutish suitors, led by the scheming Antinous (Robert Pattinson), all of them vying for the queen’s hand in remarriage and mooching off the absent king’s food and wine. — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 17 July 2026

The show gestures at the classic targets of old-timey sexism, small-mindedness, and nativism—much of it embodied by Gasteyer’s scheming character—but only in the safest possible ways. — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 21 Apr. 2026

Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, and Chace Crawford catapulted to fame playing the scheming social butterflies flitting around Gossip Girl's Upper East Side. — Rachel Desantis, Entertainment Weekly, 6 Apr. 2026

That would be Mark Rylance as Henry’s lord privy seal, Thomas Cromwell, an endlessly fascinating and ambiguous figure—brilliant, scheming, moral—whom Rylance animates with gravity and kaleidoscopic skill. — Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 20 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1741, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for scheming

• beaming
• creaming
• deeming
• dreaming
• gleaming
• leaming
• reaming
• screaming
• seaming
• seeming
• steaming
• streaming

Kids Definition

scheming

adjective

schem·​ing

ˈskē-miŋ

: being in the habit of forming schemes

especially : sneaky, deceptive