deceptive

comparative more deceptive · superlative most deceptive

1. Likely or attempting to deceive.

   deceptive practices

   5 more examples

   Appearances can be deceptive.

   But others declare that no Creature can be made or tranſmuted into a better or vvorſe, or transformed into another ſpecies or ſimilitude, by man, or devill. […] Martinus [i.e., Martin] Delrio the Jeſuit accounts this degeneration of Man into a Beaſt to be an illuſion, deceptive and repugnant to Nature; for, the ſoule of man cannot informe a beaſts body, […]

   1653, John Bulwer, “Scene XXIIII. Cruell and Fantasticall Inventions of Men Practised upon Their Bodies in a Supposed Way of Bravery, and Wicked Practices both of Men and Devils to Alter and Deforme the Humane Fabricke”, in Anthropometamorphosis: Man Transform’d; or, The Artificial Changling […], 2nd edition, London: […] William Hunt, →OCLC, page 521

   […] at the opening of the campaign, the French, after various deceptive attempts on different places, suddenly invested Tournay.

   1789, Frederick the Great, translated by Thomas Holcroft, The History of My Own Times, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Part 1, Chapter 12, p. 163

   1846, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, London: John W. Parker, 2nd ed., 1847, Preliminary Essay, Chapter 2, p. 10, language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes

   […] it is characteristic of TB that many of its symptoms are deceptive—liveliness that comes from enervation, rosy cheeks that look like a sign of health but come from fever—and an upsurge of vitality may be a sign of approaching death.

   1978, Susan Sontag, chapter 2, in Illness as Metaphor, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 13

   Synonyms: misleading, sneaking, beguiling, deceitful, deceptious, deceptory, fallacious, fraudful