chicanery
pronunciation
How to pronounce chicanery in British English:
UK [ʃɪˈkeɪnəri]
How to pronounce chicanery in American English:
US [ʃɪˈkenəri, tʃɪ-]
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- Noun:
- the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)
Word Origin
- chicanery (n.)
- c. 1600, "legal quibbling, sophistry," from French chicanerie "trickery," from Middle French chicaner "to pettifog, quibble" (15c.), which is of unknown origin, perhaps from Middle Low German schikken "to arrange, bring about," or from the name of a golf-like game once played in Languedoc. Thornton's "American Glossary" has shecoonery (1845), which it describes as probably a corruption of chicanery.
Example
- 1. I am not playing here . Don 't chicanery .
- 2. Despite careful oversight , even virtual worlds are not immune to financial chicanery .
- 3. Giving people more rights over their land title by , for example , extending the lease to 70 years could help counter such chicanery .
- 4. I 've observed that scientists tend to think and perceive logically by using their training and observational skills - of course - and are thus often psychologically insulated from the possibility that there might be chicanery at work .
- 5. This belief , they explain , provided camouflage for all manner of chicanery , putting people into houses they could not afford and erecting corrupt investment empires on the notion that unrealistic mortgage payments would somehow continue to flow .