Chapter Words Relating to the Intellectual Faculties of Index by Roget's Thesaurus

(Phrases). A Cornish hug; a painted sepulchre; a pious fraud.

(Verbs). To deceive, mislead, cheat, impose upon, practise upon, circumvent, play upon, put upon, bluff, cross, dupe, mystify, blind, hoodwink, best, outreach, trick, hoax, kid, gammon, spoof, hocus, juggle, trepan, nick, entrap, beguile, lure, inveigle, decoy, lime, ensnare, entangle, lay a snare for, trip up, stuff, give the go-by.

To defraud, cheat, take in, jockey, do, do brown, cozen, diddle, chouse, welsh, bilk, bite, pluck, swindle, victimise, outwit, overreach, nobble, palm upon, work off upon, foist upon, fob off, balk, trump up.

(Phrases). To throw dust into the eyes; to play a trick upon; to pull one's leg; to try it on; to cog the dice; to mark the cards; to play a part; to throw a tub to the whale; to make one believe the moon is made of cream- cheese.

(Adjectives). Deceiving, cheating, etc.; hypocritical, Pecksniffian; deceived, duped, done, had, etc., led astray.

Deceptive, deceitful, deceptious, illusive, illusory, delusory, elusive, insidious, ad captandum, ben trovato.

(Phrase). Fronti nulla fides; timeo Danaos.

525. Untruth (Substantives), falsehood, lie, falsity, fiction, fabrication, fib, whopper, bouncer, cracker, crammer, taradiddle, story, fable, novel, romance, flam, bam, gammon, flim-flam, guetapens, white lie, canard, nursery tale.

Falsification, perjury, forgery, false swearing, misstatement, misrepresentation.

Pretence, pretext, subterfuge, irony, evasion, blind, disguise, plea, claptrap, shuffle, make-believe, shift, mask, cloak, visor, veil, masquerade, gloss, cobweb.

(Phrases). A tub to the whale; a cock-and-bull story; all my eye.

526. Dupe (Substantives), gull, gudgeon, gobemouche, cully, victim, puppet, April fool, Cyclops, see Credulity 486.

(Phrase). Qui vult decipi, decipiatur.

527. Deceiver (Substantives), liar, hypocrite, tale-teller, shuffler, shammer, dissembler, serpent, cockatrice, Ananias, Pharisee, Jesuit, Janus, Tartuffe, Pecksniff, Joseph Surface, Cagliostro.

Pretender, impostor, knave, cheat, rogue, trickster, swindler, adventurer, humbug, sharper, jockey, welsher, leg, black-leg, rook, shark, guinea-dropper, confidence trickster, decoy, decoy-duck, stool-pigeon, gipsy.

Quack, charlatan, mountebank, empiric, quacksalver, saltimbanco, medicaster, Rosicrucian, soi-disant.

Actor, player, mummer, tumbler, posture-master, jack-pudding; illusionist, conjuror 994.

(Phrases). A wolf in sheep's clothing; one who lives by his wits.

528. Exaggeration (Substantives), hyperbole, overstatement, stretch, strain, colouring, bounce, flourish, vagary, bombast, yarn, figure of speech, flight of fancy, façon de parler, extravagance, rhodomontade, heroics, sensationalism, highfalutin; Baron Munchausen, see Boasting 884.

(Verbs). To exaggerate, amplify, overcharge, overstate, overcolour, overlay, overdo, strain, stretch, bounce, flourish, embroider; to hyperbolise, aggravate, to make the most of.

(Phrases). To stretch a point; spin a long yarn; draw the long bow; deal in the marvellous; out-herod Herod; lay it on thick; put it on; make a mountain of a mole-hill.