trickery

plural trickeries

1. countableuncountableDeception, deceit or underhanded behavior.

   [H]e did not wrap his rugged subject in silks and ermines, and other sickly trickeries of phrase.

   1809, Washington Irving, chapter 47, in Knickerbocker's History of New York

   2 more examples

   In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good.

   1852, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in Bleak House

   The miners found diversions even in his alleged frauds and trickeries . . . and were fond of relating with great gusto his evasion of the Foreign Miners' Tax.

   1898, Bret Harte, “See UP”, in Stories in Light and Shadow

   Synonyms: fraudulence, underhandedness, deceit, deceitfulness, deceptiveness, dissimulation, duplicity, fraudulence

2. uncountableThe art of dressing up; imposture, pretense.
3. uncountableArtifice; the use of one or more stratagems.

   French winger Hatem Ben Arfa has also taken plenty of plaudits recently and he was the architect of the opening goal with some superb trickery on the left touchline.

   2012 April 21, Jonathan Jurejko, “Newcastle 3-0 Stoke”, in BBC Sport