deceptive

From Middle French déceptif, from Latin dēceptīvus, from dēcipiō (“to deceive”).

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈsɛp.tɪv/

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• Rhymes: -ɛptɪv

deceptive (comparative more deceptive, superlative most deceptive)

1. Likely or attempting to deceive.

   Synonyms: misleading; see also Thesaurus:deceptive

   deceptive practices

   Appearances can be deceptive.

   • 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:

     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, […]

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

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

   • 1846, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, London: John W. Parker, 2nd ed., 1847, Preliminary Essay, Chapter 2, p. 10,^[2]

     language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes

   • 1978, Susan Sontag, chapter 2, in Illness as Metaphor‎^[3], New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 13:

     […] 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.