1
as in ruse
a clever often underhanded means to achieve an end
asking me to take her shopping turned out to be a ploy to get me to the surprise party
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2
as in spree
a time or instance of carefree fun
wanted one grand ploy through Europe before settling down and raising a family
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of ploy
His inclusion could come across as a cynical ploy, a way of measuring social progress in a backward town.
—
Grace Byron, New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2025
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, a Democrat, believes the financial incentives are a federal ploy to pull local officers away from their everyday duties and direct them to immigration enforcement.
—Rafael Carranza, ProPublica, 21 Oct. 2025
Ripping from the headlines is a money-making ploy as old as Hollywood itself.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 13 Oct. 2025
Scammers are improving their ploys to be even more convincing.
—Summer Stephan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ploy
Grace Byron, New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2025
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, a Democrat, believes the financial incentives are a federal ploy to pull local officers away from their everyday duties and direct them to immigration enforcement.
—Rafael Carranza, ProPublica, 21 Oct. 2025
Ripping from the headlines is a money-making ploy as old as Hollywood itself.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 13 Oct. 2025
Scammers are improving their ploys to be even more convincing.
—Summer Stephan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ploy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ploy
Noun
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The New York Colored American reported that some offers of short-term work for Black men — moving livestock to or from Kentucky, for example — were ruses that ended with kidnappings.—
Equal Justice Initiative,
USA Today,
6 Nov. 2025
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Odysseus, the Ithacan warrior who is as celebrated for craftiness as Achilles is for brute strength, devises a clever ruse in which the Greeks place a giant wooden horse outside Troy’s walls and pretend to sail away.—
Elizabeth D. Samet,
Foreign Affairs,
29 Oct. 2025
Noun
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In the worst killing spree in Germany’s post-war history, a former nurse was jailed in 2019 for life for murdering 85 of his patients.—
CNN Money,
CNN Money,
6 Nov. 2025
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The widening gap followed a private equity spending spree in 2021, as firms rushed to deploy unspent funds, with activity also boosted by ultra-low interest rates.—
Anniek Bao,
CNBC,
5 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Cherki is a dying breed of player, particularly now he’s been transferred to a Premier League which has moved away from off-the-cuff dribblers and towards set-play schemes.—
Jordan Campbell,
New York Times,
8 Nov. 2025
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Another worker operates the machine’s main controller, using a programming scheme for 3D printers called G-code to tell the printer what to build and how to build it.—
Jake Goodrick,
Sacbee.com,
8 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Dom tried his usual tricks, such as leaving the match to get counted out, but Cena stopped him and brought him back to the ring.—
Matthew Couden,
MSNBC Newsweek,
11 Nov. 2025
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And the action ranges from dueling card tricks to the kind of honest-to-God fights that merely serve to remind us that balletic action films really are magic tricks.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
11 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ploy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ploy. Accessed 19 Nov. 2025.
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