as in underhandedness
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Recent Examples of insidiousness
Thankfully, Leviticus has a good grasp on how to leverage this conceit for scares and to score points about the insidiousness of mistaking hatred for salvation.
—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
17 June 2026
Without ever using the words, this House of the Dragon season evokes all-too-real fears about police funding, abridgment of freedom of speech and the insidiousness of theocratic rule.
—
Daniel Fienberg,
HollywoodReporter,
15 June 2026
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
17 June 2026
Without ever using the words, this House of the Dragon season evokes all-too-real fears about police funding, abridgment of freedom of speech and the insidiousness of theocratic rule.
—
Daniel Fienberg,
HollywoodReporter,
15 June 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for insidiousness
Noun
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The hypocrisy is stunning, and frightening.
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The South cried hypocrisy on slavery, given that the seamen of Providence, Rhode Island, played a central role in the Atlantic slave trade.
Noun
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The harp is not an instrument of slyness, wryness, or the earth.
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Like the tricksters of myth, there’s depth to their slyness.
Noun
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If the landing had been faked, the Soviets would have figured it out and would have loved to reveal to the world America’s perfidy.
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Any time there is a crisis in Iran, the 1953 British-American coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh is dusted off as Exhibit A in the case against Western perfidy.
Noun
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But honesty doesn’t always save a career, and duplicity doesn’t always sink one.
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Molloy rages to his film crew, and Lestat’s duplicity plants a wedge between the vamps.
Noun
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Now, though, summer in the south is so brutal that centuries of architectural trickery is being outmatched, and in the north, houses designed to retain heat during the winter have become furnaces in sweltering summers.
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There's no shame, no trickery—just relief and a chance to rebuild your financial stability.
Noun
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Guo was convicted of nine of 12 criminal charges during a seven-week trial that prosecutors said showcased his deception of thousands of investors in bogus deals that enabled Guo’s lavish lifestyle.
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By the time the deception was uncovered, the employee had authorized $25 million in transfers.
Noun
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In the following chapters of Quand j’étais photographe, Nadar plays on the rhetorical and material slipperiness of invention to craft a curious portrait of photography’s first fifty-odd years.
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Artists are often secretive creatures, hesitant to disclose too much, and none more so than Marcel Duchamp, who spun slipperiness into an art form.
Noun
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Anything that prices it more often, more independently and more granularly works against the smoothness.
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Marketing claims about smoothness, energy, and mood are starting points for evaluation, not endpoints.
Cite this Entry
“Insidiousness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/insidiousness. Accessed 4 Jul. 2026.
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