n. 1
An act or practice intended to deceive; a trick.
The whole conversation was merely a deceit.
n. 2
An act of deceiving someone.
n. 3
The state of being deceitful or deceptive.

Related words

Word family: deceitful deception

Forms

Plural: deceits → deceptions, duplicities, trickeries, treacheries…

Choose the right word

Deceit, Deception, Guile, Falsehood or Lying?

Deceit is the habit, deception the act; guile applies to the disposition out of which deceit and deception grow, and also to their actual practise. Falsehood and lying are in utterance; deceit and deception may be merely in act or implication.

J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)

Example sentences

deception She was aware of his propensity towards deception.
treachery Misogynists, their treachery knows no limits.
trickery The ones who lack courage, exceed in trickery.
duplicity Tom is often accused of duplicity.

Popularity over time

Word	1850 → 2019	Trend
deceit		rising
deception		rising
treachery		steady
trickery		rising
duplicity		steady
dissimulation		rising

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

4 letters: scam¹, ruse¹
5 letters: trick¹, fraud¹, guile¹
7 letters: cunning², falsity³, perfidy³
8 letters: cheating², delusion³, trickery³, artifice³
9 letters: deception³, hypocrisy⁴, treachery³, duplicity⁴, chicanery⁴, imposture
10 letters: subterfuge³
11 letters: dissembling³, indirection, fraudulence
13 letters: prevarication⁵, dissimulation, deceitfulness, insidiousness, deceptiveness
15 letters: duplicitousness

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (cunning² = 2 syllables).

In other languages

Français: tromperie
Italiano: fregatura
Català: engany