in his deceptive answer about the vehicle's history, the salesman said that the used car had never been hit by another car
a mail-order firm indicted for deceptive business practices
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'deceptive.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use: circa 1611
in the meaning defined above
See Words from the same yearbeguiling, deceitful, deceiving, deluding, delusive, delusory, fallacious, false, misleading, specious;
candid, direct, foursquare, frank, free-spoken, open, openhearted, outspoken, plain, plainspoken, straight;
artful, crafty, cunning, devious, foxy, guileful, shady, shifty, slick, sly, sneaking, sneaky, subtile, subtle, trick, trickish, tricky, underhand, underhanded, wily;
crooked, defrauding, dishonest, dissembling, double-dealing, duplicitous, faithless, fast, fraudulent, knavish, lying, mendacious, untrustworthy, untruthful;
bogus, counterfeit, fake, feigned, forged, phony (also phoney), sham, spurious;
insidious, perfidious, treacherous;
artificial, backhanded, hypocritical, insincere, left-handed, two-faced;
: intended to make someone believe something that is not true
: likely to make someone believe something that is not true
Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for deceptive Spanish Central: Translation of deceptive Nglish: Translation of deceptive for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of deceptive for Arabic speakers
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