Link Centre Dictionary

deceptive

de·cep·tive

UK/dɪˈsɛp.tɪv/ US/dɪˈsɛptɪv/ uncommon

adjective

1.

causing one to believe what is not true or fail to believe what is true

  • “deceptive calm”
  • “a delusory pleasure”
Synonyms
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2.

tending to deceive or mislead either deliberately or inadvertently

  • “the deceptive calm in the eye of the storm”
  • “deliberately deceptive packaging”
  • “a misleading similarity”
  • “statistics can be presented in ways that are misleading”
Synonyms
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Origin

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

Related words

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.