chicanery

English
WOTD – 3 June 2008

Etymology

From French chicanerie (“trickery”), from chicaner, borrowed from Middle Low German schicken, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *skikkijan, from Proto-Germanic *skikkijaną. Related to German schicken (“to send, ship”), Middle English skekken (“to send forth, issue”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ʃɪˈkeɪn(ə)ɹi/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

chicanery (countable and uncountable, plural chicaneries)

  1. Deception by use of trickery, quibbling, or subterfuge.
    • 1823, Charles Lamb, “Popular Fallacies”, in Elia, new edition, London: Edward Moxon, published 1835, →ISBN, page 241:
      They do not always find manors, got by rapine or chicanery, insensibly to melt away, as the poets will have it ; or that all gold glides, like thawing snow, from the thief’s hand that grasps it.
    • 2017, Gordon Smith, “Chicanery”, in Better Call Saul, season 3, episode 5, spoken by Chuck McGill (Michael McKean):
      He covered his tracks, he got that idiot at the copy shop to lie for him. You think this is something? You think this is bad? This? This chicanery? He's done worse. That billboard! Are you telling me that a man just happens to fall like that? No! He orchestrated it! Jimmy!
    • 2019 April 28, Alex McLevy, “Game Of Thrones Suffers the Fog of War in the Battle against the Dead (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 31 May 2021:
      Having survived “The Long Night,” Daenerys will now be turning her attention back to the problem that originally vexed her: Cersei Lannister. It will be interesting to see how the show tries to raise the stakes of an internecine squabble between competing monarchs when compared to an existential threat to humanity’s very existence, but this series has always excelled when it goes deep on the machinations of political chicanery.
  2. (countable, law) A slick performance by a lawyer.

Synonyms

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Further reading
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