HOODWINKING Synonyms: 127 Similar and Opposite Words

hoodwinking 1 of 2

noun

as in fooling

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hoodwinking

2 of 2

verb

present participle of hoodwink

as in tricking

to cause to believe what is untrue Tom Sawyer famously hoodwinked the other boys into thinking there was nothing more enjoyable than whitewashing a fence

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of hoodwinking

Verb

Stadiums are notorious for their lack of multiplier impact, which is one reason these days why sports team owners, such as the McCaskey family that controls the Bears, have such a hard time hoodwinking governments into giving them direct subsidies to build their stadiums. — David Greising, Chicago Tribune, 24 Apr. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for hoodwinking

Noun

No fooling, April brings some pretty interesting surprises on Netflix.

— K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 27 Mar. 2026

Definition of fooling

Verb

An English springer spaniel in Alabama loves nothing more than spending her whole day in the pool and has taken to tricking her parents into letting her into the pool every day.

— Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 6 Sep. 2026
In many cases, the robot tail wags the living dog by tricking it—tricking us—into caring about obscure metrics, then gamifying the process of improving them.

— Hillary Busis, Vanity Fair, 28 Aug. 2026

Definition of tricking

Noun

Litton had apparently set up a similar ruse at another small Seventh-day Adventist school, this one in Red Bluff, about 70 miles northwest of Oroville, sheriff’s officials said.

— Rosalio Ahumada, Sacbee.com, 14 Sep. 2026
One such ruse, revealed by The Athletic in August 2024, involved a team of pickpockets being hired to teach his squad the importance of being ready, alert and prepared at all times.

— Art de Roché, New York Times, 11 Sep. 2026

Definition of ruse

Verb

The public deserves to know which of his points were defensible and which were deceiving.

— Stewart Mandel, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2026
At Ground Zero, 9/11 widow Terry Strada accused Saudi Arabia of deceiving victims’ families and urged the administration to rethink Washington’s close ties as a landmark lawsuit moves forward.

— Collin Binkley, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2026

Definition of deceiving

Noun

The cover art sets it up perfectly, a dreamlike subterfuge that transforms the Villarreals into mythological Greek heroines.

— Selena Fragassi, SPIN, 27 Aug. 2026
The subterfuge involved him stowing away in an airport catering container to sneak onto the jet.

— Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 13 Aug. 2026

Definition of subterfuge

Noun

Leaders managing autonomous agent deployments across enterprise environments have spent years auditing outputs for compliance, deception vectors and guardrail breaches.

— Terry Oroszi, Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2026
Those charges cover a wide range of behaviors related to schemes in which money or property is obtained through deception and interstate electronic communications.

— Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 11 Sep. 2026

Definition of deception

Noun

Between the huge practical sets and stunts, the matte paintings and in-camera trickery, the on-location filming, and a leading man at the height of his movie star powers, Spielberg and his team performed the filmmaking equivalent of wizardry.

— Frank DeRuggiero, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Sep. 2026
Football is all about engaño (trickery) — looking one way and passing the other, feinting to go left and swiftly moving right, manipulating the opposition and tricking them to open up those little spaces.

— Xavi, New York Times, 19 July 2026

Definition of trickery

Noun

There’s a delightful secret history of Hollywood directors whose ruses and stratagems bought them an unusual amount of leeway with their scripts.

— Richard Brody, New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2026
Through Elizabeth’s rise from servant to visionary who resisted Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church to gain a divorce, Brown explores historical women’s stratagems for self-determination.

— Monitor reviewers, Christian Science Monitor, 17 Apr. 2026

Definition of stratagem

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hoodwinking

hoodwinks

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“Hoodwinking.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hoodwinking. Accessed 17 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of hoodwinking

noun

verb

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