Crossword clues for deceptive
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deceptive \De*cep"tive\, a. [Cf. F. d['e]ceptif. See Deceive.] Tending to deceive; having power to mislead, or impress with false opinions; as, a deceptive countenance or appearance.
Language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper
reality from our eyes.
--Trench.
Deceptive cadence (Mus.), a cadence on the subdominant, or in some foreign key, postponing the final close.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1610s, from French deceptif (late 14c.), from Medieval Latin deceptivus, from decept-, past participle stem of Latin decipere (see deceive). Earlier in this sense was deceptious (c.1600), from French deceptieux, from Medieval Latin deceptiosus, from deceptionem. Related: Deceptively; deceptiveness.
Wiktionary
a. misleading, likely or attempting to deceive
WordNet
adj. causing one to believe what is not true or fail to believe what is true; "deceptive calm"; "a delusory pleasure" [syn: delusory]
tending to deceive or mislead either deliberately or inadvertently; "the deceptive calm in the eye of the storm"; "deliberately deceptive packaging"; "a misleading similarity"; "statistics can be presented in ways that are misleading" [syn: misleading]
Usage examples of "deceptive".
Lindsay proceeded down the line of bronzes, Catlin divided his attention between the two sides of the deceptive mirror.
He took another mouthful of burkha, feeling slightly deceptive and taking refuge in eating.
Mythology is the deceptive substitute for this, employed when we arbitrarily project forms of our present experience into the unknown futurity, and then hold the resultant fancies as a rigid belief, or regard them as actual knowledge.
Because the limited representations of a map are thus deceptive, it may take a journeyer longer to travel the last little fingerbreadth of distance across a map than it took him to travel all the many handspans previous.
The lanky Kentuckian regarded him with deceptive mildness in his cold gray eyes.
A peculiar aura like the deceptive Flatland marshlights shimmered around him, and through it his hair gleamed gold.
It was the pale green I remembered, slightly milkier, but I knew the color was deceptive.
She stared at them for a long moment, held by an illusion of meaning, the deceptive gnosis of the nets, where every shape held a dozen contrary secrets.
She gaped in wonder at the sheer elegance and deceptive simplicity of the coiled, ribbonlike structure, which appeared to glow with its own transcendent light.
Distanoes were deceptive in open country, and Sunfisher was farther away than he appeared.
Kirk had experienced a downpour like this only once before, on a deceptive world in 155 156 STAR TROT L tilde Fig the Taurean system.
Deceptive letters being sent around Latium and the Volscian nation, a tumultuary army, hastily raised from all quarters, was assembled, for as they had not been present at the battle, they were more disposed to believe on slight grounds.
And what if these spiritual forces are invisible, malevolent, and deceptive?
But she was weeping, and her tears, which at all events were not deceptive, took away from me the faculty of doubt.
In jump school, his instructors had warned him about this deceptive, dangerous sensation.