duplicity
/djuːˈplɪsɪti
/noun [mass noun]
1Deceitfulness: the president was accused of duplicity in his dealings with Congress...
- To promote and protect their interest, they used coercion, bribery and nepotism as state policy and created a culture of opportunism, deceit, duplicity, loot and plunder.
- He said the biggest obstacle to a Yes vote was the Government, whose track record of deceit, and duplicity had now been shamefully exposed.
- It survives as a staple of film and television because it is highly photogenic, incorporating the undeniable dynamism of deceit and duplicity usually reserved for the spy story.
Synonyms
deceitfulness, deceit, deception, deviousness, two-facedness, double-dealing, underhandedness, dishonesty, falseness, falsity, fraud, fraudulence, sharp practice, swindling, cheating, chicanery, trickery, craft, guile, artifice, subterfuge, skulduggery, treachery, unfairness, unjustness, perfidy, improbity
informal crookedness, shadiness, foxiness, dirty tricks, shenanigans, monkey business, funny business, hanky-panky
British informal jiggery-pokery
North American informal monkeyshines
Irish informal codology
archaic knavery, knavishness, management
2 archaic The state of being double.When her survey group becomes lost inside the cave, the author uses the experience to propel questions of the duplicity of maps and the ambiguities of human perception....
- The very label, ‘African American’ intrinsically signifies a duplicity that remains misunderstood and unappreciated by many American and Africans.
- This concurrence of disparate attitudes toward him creates an ambiguous point of view and indicates a duplicity, if not a multiplicity, of authorship.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French duplicite or late Latin duplicitas, from Latin duplic- 'twofold' (see duplex).