guile

1 skill in achieving one's ends through indirect, subtle, or underhanded means a shady salesman who usually relies on a combination of quick thinking and guile Synonyms artfulness, artifice, caginess (also cageyness), canniness, craft, craftiness, cunningness, deviousness, foxiness, cunning, guilefulness, slickness, slyness, sneakiness, subtleness, subtlety, wilinessRelated Words calculation, care, design; savvy, sharpness, shrewdness; cleverness, ingeniousness, ingenuity, inventiveness; ease, facility, finesse; deceitfulness, duplicity, shiftiness, underhandedness

2 the inclination or practice of misleading others through lies or trickery a person so full of guile he can't even be trusted to give you the correct time of day Synonyms artifice, cheating, cozenage, craft, craftiness, crookedness, crookery, cunning, cunningness, deceitfulness, deception, deceptiveness, dishonesty, dissembling, dissimulation, double-dealing, dupery, duplicity, fakery, foxiness, fraud, deceit, guilefulness, wilinessRelated Words equivocation, lying, mendacity, prevarication; chicane, chicanery, fraudulence, hanky-panky, jugglery, legerdemain, mountebankery, obliquity, skulduggery (or skullduggery), subterfuge, swindling, trickery, wile; falsehood, falsity, fib, untruth; hypocrisy, insincerity, sanctimoniousness, two-facedness; artfulness, caginess (also cageyness), deviousness, shrewdness; treacherousness, underhandedness, unscrupulousness; covertness, furtiveness, secrecy, shadiness, sneakiness, stealthiness; oiliness, shiftiness, slickness, slipperiness, slyness, smoothnessNear Antonyms candidness, candor, directness, frankness, openness, plainness, plainspokenness; honesty, probity; dependability, reliability, reliableness, solidity, trustability, trustiness, trustworthiness; decency, goodness, incorruptibility, integrity, righteousness, truthfulness, uprightness, virtuousnessAntonyms artlessness, forthrightness, good faith, guilelessness, ingenuousness, sincerity