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n. An artful or crafty expedient; a stratagem. See Synonyms at wile.

n. Subtle but base deception; trickery.

n. Cleverness or skill; ingenuity.

n. A crafty but underhanded deception.

n. A trick played out as an ingenious, but artful, ruse.

n. A strategic maneuver that uses some clever means to avoid detection or capture.

n. A tactical move to gain advantage.

n. A handicraft; a trade; art of making.

n. Workmanship; a skillfully contrived work.

n. Artful or skillful contrivance.

n. Crafty device; an artful, ingenious, or elaborate trick. [Now the usual meaning.]

n. . The art of making.

n. An ingenious or skilfully contrived work.

n. Skill in designing and employing expedients; artful contrivance; address; trickery.

n. A crafty device; an ingenious expedient; trick; shift; piece of finesse.

n. Synonyms Artifice, Manæuver, Stratagem, Wile, Trick, Ruse, Finesse, device, contrivance, cunning, craft, deception, cheat, fraud, guile, imposition, dodge, subterfuge, double-dealing. These words generally imply a careful endeavor to compass an end by deceiving others, not necessarily, however, with evil intent. They all imply management and address. An artifice is prepared with art or care; it is craftily devised. Manæuver suggests something more elaborate or intricate, a carefully contrived movement or course of action for a definite purpose; it is the quiet or secret marshaling of one's intellectual or other resources to carry a point. Stratagem is, like manæuver, a figurative term drawn from war; it is upon a larger scale what wile is upon a smaller, a device to deceive one who is the object of an imagined warfare, so that we may catch him at a disadvantage and discomfit him, or, more generally, a carefully prepared plan to carry one's point with another—to capture it or him, so to speak. A wile may be peculiarly coaxing or insinuating. Trick is the lowest and most dishonorable of these words; it may be a low or underhand act, in violation of honor or propriety, for the purpose of cheating, or something as bad. A ruse is a deception of some elaborateness, intended to cover one's intentions, help one to escape from a predicament, etc.; it is a plausible way of bringing about what we desire to happen, without apparent interference on our part. Finesse is subtlety in action; it is a more delicate sort of artifice. See artful, evasion, and fraud.

n. a deceptive maneuver (especially to avoid capture)

"But thinking through the poem's artifice is only one way into it, and on the poem's own terms it is not necessarily a better path than the one pointed to by the rhetorical question of the"

tactical maneuver    tactical manoeuvre    manoeuvre    maneuver   

Art    ingeniousness   

artificial   

handicraft    trade    workmanship   

deceit    stratagem    trickery    guile    evasion    duplicity    dissimulation    hypocrisy    ruse    contrivance