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Deceitful   /dəsˈitfəl/  /dɪsˈitfəl/   Listen
Deceitful

adjective
1.
Intended to deceive.  Synonyms: fallacious, fraudulent.  "Fallacious testimony" , "Smooth, shining, and deceitful as thin ice" , "A fraudulent scheme to escape paying taxes"
2.
Marked by deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another.  Synonyms: ambidextrous, double-dealing, double-faced, double-tongued, duplicitous, Janus-faced, two-faced.  "A double-dealing double agent" , "A double-faced infernal traitor and schemer"



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"Deceitful" Quotes from Famous Books



... have principally drawn this account from the Zendavesta of M. d'Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr. Hyde's treatise. It must, however, be confessed, that the studied obscurity of a prophet, the figurative style of the East, and the deceitful medium of a French or Latin version may have betrayed us into error and heresy, in this abridgment of Persian theology. * Note: It is to be regretted that Gibbon followed the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... are jus' wicked an' deceitful," she said. "Up on the earth, where I live, we call the Stannerd Oil Company an octopus, an' the Coal ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum

... that the whole party had fallen through{1} the ice; at another, that they had been way-laid and cut off by the Dog-ribs. In vain did we urge the improbability of the former accident, or the peaceable character of the Dog-ribs, so little in conformity with the latter. "The ice at this season was deceitful," they said, "and the Dog-ribs, though unwarlike, were treacherous." These assertions, so often repeated, had some effect upon the spirits of our Canadian voyagers, who seldom weigh any opinion they adopt; but we persisted in treating their fears as chimerical, for had we seemed to listen to ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... seven years. Then the deceitful Benoit came pensively back to her, a cripple from a timber accident. She believed what he told her; and that was where her comedy ended and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... from shore—quite out of sight of shore, in short—and then the perfidious music ceased. To the people on land it had sung, "Come and make merry with us," but from us, trying in vain to make merry, it withheld its deceitful inspiration. For the exceeding weight of sorrow that presently settled down upon us it had no balm. When you are on a pleasure trip it is unpleasant to be miserable; so I tried hard to shake off the mild melancholy that began to steal over me. I said to myself, I will not affront the great ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls—all things considered—I never heard of before,' exclaimed Lady Knollys. 'There's no such thing as ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... with ev'ry virtue mov'd, Tho' at his birth deceitful fortune smil'd, In one sad hour, too fatally he lov'd; False fortune frown'd, and he ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... which, according to Pliny, holds a stone in its claw to avert sleep, is a fit emblem of watchfulness; the pomegranate, king of fruits, wears a regal crown; the crocodile, symbol of hypocrisy, sheds deceitful tears. In short, almost everything that was in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, was seized by the device-maker, and converted into a symbol of some virtue, vice, or other quality of the mind. Nor was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... an un- happy curiosity this way, till I laughed myself out of it with a piece of Justin, where he delivers that the children of Israel, for being scabbed, were banished out of Egypt. And truly, since I have understood the occurrences of the world, and know in what counterfeit- ing shapes and deceitful visards times present represent on the stage things past, I do believe them little more than things to come. Some have been of my own opinion, and endeavoured to write the history of their own lives; wherein Moses hath outgone them all, and left not only the story of his life, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... to surprise him. I was jealous. I couldn't bear to think of his being here with other girls—men are so deceitful! That's why I consented to act as chaperon to Helen. And now to think that I should have met my fate ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... other hand, was (in such a state of trepidation) that he could wipe the perspiration (off his face) by handfuls; and he felt constrained on his return home, to have recourse to deceitful excuses, simply explaining that he had been at his eldest maternal uncle's house, and that when it got dark, they kept him to spend ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... him to her court, lavished upon him, with queenly profusion, caresses and flattery, and enticed him with all those blandishments which might most effectually enthrall the impassioned spirit of youth. Voluptuousness, gilded with its most dazzling and deceitful enchantments, was studiously presented to his eye. The queen was all love and complaisance. She received him to her cabinet council. She affected to regard him as her chief confidant. She had already formed the design of perfidiously throwing the Protestants off their ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... this woful condition that mankind, being slavish, interested, insidious, deceitful, and bloody, bear marks, if not of the least curable, surely of the most lamentable sort of corruption. [Footnote: Chardin's Travels.] Among them, war is the mere practice of rapine, to enrich the individual; commerce is turned into a system of snares and impositions; ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... country during the nine months of our Northern winter, he may have a mighty hunger and thirst, when he is thawed out, to see human faces and hear human voices; but even then Saratoga is not the place to go to, on account of this very artificialness. By artificial I do not mean deceitful. I saw nobody but nice people there, smooth, kind, and polite. By artificial I mean wrought up. You don't get at the heart of things. Artificialness spreads and spans all with a crystal barrier,—invisible, but palpable. Nothing was left to grow and go at its own sweet will. The very ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... bones, too, of large mammals, allied to the tapir of India and South America, and the water-hog of the Cape. If all this does not mean that there was once a tropic climate and a tropic river running into some sea or other where London now stands, I must give up common sense and reason as deceitful and useless faculties; and believe nothing, not even the ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... thoroughly deceitful," Aunt Martha comes back. "She misrepresents her age, lies about her birthplace, and—and she wears ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... scanty? But I see what you mean. I have been too much at my ease—too happy, too frank. I have erred against every commonplace notion of decorum. I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull and deceitful. Had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... the O. P. occupied and evacuated between half-past eleven and twelve, and three times did Mr. Plowman actually throw open his door and advance, nervous but beaming, into the drive, only to hear the deceitful engine once more gathering speed. The fourth time, however, the purr of the engine fell to a steady mutter, which was maintained. The car was not at the gate, but it was not moving. Possibly its occupants were inquiring for The Nook.... Mr. Plowman tried not to ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... moment, and not remembered, are a real prayer; for it is not hypocrisy that is the most common danger; our temper, when we are on our knees, is apt indeed to be careless, but not, I hope and believe, deceitful. This, of course, must be well known to a very large proportion of us; but, perhaps, there are some to whom it may be useful; some to whom the advice may not yet have suggested itself, that they should ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... and of the means he possessed to carry it into effect, he laid them before his confidential counsellors and officers, and demanded their opinion. 'These words of Count Julian,' said he, 'may be false and deceitful; or he may not possess the power to fulfil his promises. The whole may be a pretended treason to draw us on to our destruction. It is more natural that he should be treacherous to us than ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... dear deceitful dreams! Ye silken cords that bind the heart;— Canst thou, Eliza, these entwine, And smile ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... horridly deceitful about it, for Stella never would be decently civil to him while I was there, and left him last week; and now I suppose they have been meeting all this week and falling in love,' said Vava in ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... seen enough prisoners to know how deceitful appearances are, and how little they are to be trusted. It would be foolish to base a theory upon a prisoner's bearing. He who talked about 'the cry of innocence' was an idiot, just as the man was who prated about the 'pale stupor' of guilt. Neither crime nor virtue ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... Deceitful love beguiles the simple fool And binds with magic thongs the hapless wight; That like a moth lured by the candle-light, He hovers, helpless, round ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... himself!" cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudices contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all matters which concerned the Mingoes; "a lying and deceitful varlet as he is. An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain still, and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go—let him go; 'tis but one man, and he without rifle ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... of his creation by increasing his kind and replenishing the earth; for this was the injunction laid upon him in Paradise, before his fall. To conclude, a virtuous wife is a crown and ornament to her husband, and her price is above all rubies: but the ways of a harlot are deceitful. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... declines the offer. Looking at it attentively he wonders where she could have procured such a valuable necklace. They both go to the king who has gone from the queen's apartments to the crystal alcove and is lamenting thus:—"Deceitful vows, tender speeches, plausible excuses and prostrate supplications had less effect upon the queen's anger than her own teaks; like water upon the fire they quenched the blaze of her indignation. I am now only anxious for Sagarika. Her ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... his letters.... I knew I was behaving wrongly; I can't defend myself.... I have never concealed my faults from you—the greatest of them is my fear of poverty. I believe it is this that has prevented me from returning your love as I wished to do. For a long time I have been playing a deceitful part, and the strange thing is that I knew my exposure might come at any moment. I seem to have been led on by a sort of despair. Now I am tired of it; whether you were prepared for this or not, I must tell you.... I don't ask you to release me. I have been wronging you and ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... he looked up, and saw Cecil still beside her, and her laughing and talking so pleasantly, while he was miserable and unhappy, the old chill came on his heart again, and he thought—was the last happy week only a deceitful gleam of sunshine, and should he ever take his old place beside ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... speeches in the House of Commons), the Colonel was sure some infernal conspiracy lay under the villain's words. The whole of that branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their kinsman's hands—they were all deceitful, sordid, heartless, worldly;—Ethel herself no better now than the people who had bred her up. People hate, as they love, unreasonably. Whether is it the more mortifying to us, to feel that we are disliked or ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... she look'd! her conscious heart Glow'd in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong. O Love! how perfect is thy mystic art, Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong, How self-deceitful is the sagest part Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along— The precipice she stood on was immense, So was her creed in ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... like a hedge, but this impedes their wonderful growth; and (though Pliny seems to commend it, teaching us how to excorticate some places of each set, for the sooner production of shoots) it is but a deceitful fence, neither fit to keep out swine nor sheep; and being set too near, inclining to one another, they soon destroy ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... the king derided Moses; he made him in earnest see the signs that were done at Mount Sinai. Yet was the king very angry with him and called him an ill man, who had formerly run away from his Egyptian slavery, and came now back with deceitful tricks, and wonders, and magical arts, to astonish him. And when he had said this, he commanded the priests to let him see the same wonderful sights; as knowing that the Egyptians were skillful in this kind of learning, and that he was not the only ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... gay deceitful snares, Enlarge their fears, increase their cares Their servants' joy surpasses theirs; At ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... before me; but though I wish to follow and lay hold of it, I really find no way to do so.' CHAP. XI. 1. The Master being very ill, Tsze-lu wished the disciples to act as ministers to him. 2. During a remission of his illness, he said, 'Long has the conduct of Yu been deceitful! By pretending to have ministers when I have them not, whom should I impose upon? Should I ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge

... or ridiculed the mysteries, the experiences, the circumspect professor of the Christian faith, is almost certain to have the presentation: perhaps he covenanted for it as part of his wages. For what simony, sacrilege, and deceitful perjury, with respect to ordination vows, patronage opens a door, he that runs may read. Shocked with the view, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... and a friend. But Nero did not choose to let Seneca escape so lightly. He argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him—the usual termination, as Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler—but nevertheless altered his entire manner of life, forbade his friends to ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... influence adverse to his plans, or calculated to lessen the value of the inspired character which he had assumed. Finally, it may be said of him, that he was a vain, loquacious and cunning man, of indolent habits and doubtful principles. Plausible but deceitful, prone to deal in the marvellous, quick of apprehension, affluent in pretexts, winning and eloquent, if not powerful in debate, the Prophet was peculiarly fitted to play the impostor, and to excite into strong action, the credulous fanaticism of the stern race to which he belonged. Few men, in ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile, Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile? ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... give me a chance?" she sobbed. "Not one? If I had but known you better—if I had understood oh, I've been vile, wicked, deceitful—but I'm not happy, Harry—I've never been happy since I wronged you! Won't you give me one little hope that I may win your love again,—no, not your love, but your pity? Oh, Harry, have I ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... flesh of Jesus Christ, and to the Apostles as the presbytery of the Church. And the prophets also I love, as persons who announce Christ, as partaking of the same spirit with the Apostles. For just as the false prophets and false apostles have drawn one and the same wicked and deceitful and seducing spirit, so also the prophets and the apostles, one and the same holy spirit, good, leading, true, and instructing. For one is the God of the Old and the New Testament. One is Mediator between God and man, for the production of the creatures ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... deceitful Aetna's Flow'ry side Unfading verdure glads the roving eye, While secret flames with unextinguish'd rage Insatiate on her wafted entrails prey, And melt her ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... but then women are deceitful by nature, and very skilful in disguising their faults—at least so I have ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... great deal more for you, too, if you had not developed such a liking for Madge Morton. You thought you were managing so cleverly that I would not notice. Of course, I am not angry with you, but I think you ought to do something to make amends for being so deceitful." ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... language was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood, and which Augustus would have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the empire were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent Highness. The codicils or patents of their office were curiously emblazoned with such emblems ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... without resistance on February 3, 1781. Over 150 vessels were taken in the bay, besides a richly laden convoy of Dutch ships which had lately put to sea. Rodney held that the island was a "nest of villains," and that its "infamous and deceitful inhabitants" owed their wealth to their support of the king's enemies by contraband trading; they "deserved scourging," and he vowed that they should get it. He confiscated all the property on the island, private as well as public, save what belonged to the French, who were open enemies. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... we cannot but acknowledge that Art-Unions are nothing else but lotteries, under another and more popular name. Both exist ostensibly for the good of others, who in reality are but the dupes of a most deceitful and vicious system, against which every good citizen should indignantly turn his face. It cannot be justly said in defence of Art-Unions, that they spend more money for art than was ever done in the same period of time, nor that they have distributed works amongst a class ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... man who eagerly listens to deceitful promises of recovery, although he feels himself sinking into the grave, did Prosper feel his sad heart cheered ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... very fallacious and deceitful arguing of the Pharisee, thus to speak before God in his prayers: I am righteous, because I have not hurt my neighbour, and because I have acted in ceremonial duties. Nor will that help him at all to say, he gave tithes of all that he possessed. It ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... principal ecclesiastical edifice at Caen. It was hard upon nine o'clock; and the evening being extremely dusky, we had necessarily a very indistinct view of the other churches—but, to my eye, as seen in a lengthened view, and through a deceitful atmosphere, Caen had the appearance of OXFORD on a diminutive scale. The town itself, like our famous University, is built in a slanting direction; though the surrounding country is yet flatter than about Oxford. As we entered it, all the population seemed collected to witness our arrival. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... revenge. Still less can the fearer of God doubt the propriety of his expressing by the mouth of his prophet, that displeasure he signally displayed by his providence, scathing and blasting the accursed wretch into a terror to all bloody and deceitful men who shall read their ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... those who are older, and wished them well, to decide for them. I had hoped to have been able to place you in a more respectable situation in society than was my original intention when you were thrown upon me, a destitute orphan; but I now perceive my error. You have proved yourself not only deceitful ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... consummately impressive were it not that we know how wholly deceitful she was without in the least knowing it. But the creeping horror of time is quickly softened by her marriage in 1833 to a Frenchman called De Bombelles, who was in the service of her native land, and is said to have had English blood in his veins. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... this view of science it appears, that all previous knowledge was deceitful, and that the whole story of humanity, in the sense of self- knowledge, has been divided into three, actually into two, periods: the theological and metaphysical period, extending from the beginning of the world to Comte, and the present period,—that of the only true science, positive science,—beginning ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... that was all the good it did her. 'Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain,' Ursula. She was Sarah Pyatt and she married Fred Proctor. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After she married him he give up being fascinating but he kept on being wicked. That's the men for you. Her sister Flora weren't much luckier. Her man was that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... now that we have you on our side, dear Aunt Judith. Perhaps Mr. Ellsworth may not admire blondes like Dainty. Besides, she is a vain, silly little thing, and very deceitful!" fibbed Olive, trying to prejudice her ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the Federal Government can not be permitted to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several States by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the General Government and annually divided among the States; and if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the States should disregard the principles of economy which ought to characterize every republican ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... reader will now understand Carmen's confusion and blushes, and believe himself an ass to have thought them a confession of original affection. The feminine reader will, by this time, become satisfied that the deceitful minx's sole idea was to gain the affections of Thatcher. And really I don't know ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... a good deal of sly prudence in you," she said to Mr. Null. "You must have seen something, in your time, of the ways of deceitful Englishwomen. What does that palaver mean in plain words?" She ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... beautifully, Gwymplane. Talk to me with the savage pulsating words of your clown language. Talk to me as if you held a whip in your hand. [She catches at his hand] What marvellous hands you have! Deceitful hands—for they look unlike the things they do—the ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange

... of her son, whom I had engaged to take away with me, I addressed several remarks to him, and soon discovered that he was of a false and deceitful nature, always on his guard, taking care of what he said, and consequently speaking only from his head and not from his heart. Every word was delivered with a quiet politeness which, no doubt, was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the station; the latter syllable, albeit in England sheep are not wont to bray, is supposed by the pious to have reference to the bleating of the lamb, which led to the discovery of the miraculous image.—Etymology is a wide district in a pleasant country, strangely intersected by many and deceitful paths. He that ventures upon the exploring of it, requires the utmost caution, and the constant control of sober reason: woe will be sure to betide the unfortunate wight, who, in such a situation, gives the reins to fancy, and suffers imagination to usurp the place ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... roots of my hair, to think how readily I had set this man down as a runaway thief. Never was a face less deceitful, or a manner less suspicious; and I, if I had not been a fool, might have known ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... now unseen! When brightly shines the prosperous day, Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen To temper the deceitful ray. And O, when stoops on Judah's path In shade and storm the frequent night, Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, A burning and ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... was with the joyous feeling of boys, exulting in a momentary liberation from scholastic restraint, and eagerly turning into holiday, that which they little deemed would so soon become a day of mourning. How rapidly was the deceitful illusion dispelled, when, on entering the sick chamber of their adored parent, they beheld what every surrounding circumstance told them was not the mere bed of sickness, but the bed of death. Propped on pillows that supported her feeble head—her beautiful black hair streaming ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... breast! Mostly from thee its merciless snow Grim January doth glean, I trow. Pass off with speed, thou prowler pale, Holding along o'er hill and dale, Spilling a noxious spittle round, Spoiling the fairies' sporting ground! Move off to hell, mysterious haze; Wherein deceitful meteors blaze; Thou wild of vapour, vast, o'ergrown, Huge as the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... Manuel once more; and went in to ask the senora for a most palatable decoction whose chief ingredient was blackberry wine, which the senora recommended to all and sundry for various ailments. Though Manuel, the deceitful one, had no ailment, he did have a keen appreciation of the flavour of the cordial, and his medicine bottle was never long empty—or ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... arrival Knowles had moved on westwards 'towards the Beauce, intending to reach his own estates in Brittany for winter quarters. But his young captains got out of control. Led by a Gloucestershire knight, Sir John Minsterworth, "ready in hand but deceitful and perverse in mind," a considerable section of the troops refused to follow the old "tomb-robber" to Brittany, and determined to spend the winter where they were, under Minsterworth's leadership. Knowles would not give place to his subordinate, and made his way ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... so fast, young man," laughed Mr. Bell, "appearances are often deceitful, especially ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... policy of restricting the traffic with America so closely to cotton, gives a deceitful appearance to the stated imports and exports. From these statements there should, in fairness, be deducted the value of all the raw cotton which is returned to America; and, in fact, if the true exchange trade would be seen, all should be deducted that is exported from England. That portion ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... years tread the slippery and deceitful path of abhorrent Catholicism, but who to-day stands at the Vatican's door, with the torch of Protestant wisdom, and denounces Popery with a tongue livid with the power ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... rest, if I get drunk, perhaps I'll give to you: yet in my drink I'm damn'd ill-natur'd too, and may neglect my Duty; perhaps shall be so wicked, to call you cunning, deceitful, jilting, base, and swear you have undone me, swear you have ravish'd from my faithful Heart all that cou'd make it bless'd ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... lady. 'And you think that I wish to hear you speak! You think the sound of that deceitful voice has any charm for me! You are mistaken, sir! I have listened to you too long. It was not to remonstrate with you that I resolved to see you. The tones of your voice can only excite my disgust. I am here to speak myself; ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... "You deceitful little thing!" said her brother, who had nearly recovered his cheerfulness. "I heard you tell poor young Thompson that you had never enjoyed yourself ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... between God and man, everywhere confronted him. Religion was then much more intimately blended with the life of man than it is now; and on all matters of religion, Western Europe seemed to present a united front and to be impervious to change. Appearances, however, are proverbially deceitful. Beneath this apparent uniformity and general conformity, there lurked countless forces, spiritual, intellectual, social and political, making for change. Dissent and dissatisfaction, with myriads of tiny teeth, had undermined and weakened the stately columns that upheld ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... gods can change, Viewing the rough black sea With eyes to tempests strange, Who now is basking in your golden smile, And dreams of you still fancy-free, still kind, Poor fool, nor knows the guile Of the deceitful wind! Woe to the eyes you dazzle without cloud Untried! For me, they show in yonder fane My dripping garments, vow'd To Him who curbs ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... "you are the vilest man that ever breathed within these walls. Oh, Roderic MacAlpin, unworthy son of a noble and good prince, you have brought the guilt of blood upon your father's name! You have slain your own brother, our dear lord and master; you have shed his life's blood within his own hall. Deceitful traitor that you are, you came to this peaceful island in the semblance of a friend. But, by all that I hold sacred, you shall not leave it again ere you have been duly ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... heartless extortioner! Begone, sirra; a foot of land upon the property for which I am agent you shall never occupy. You and your tribe, whether you batten upon the distress of struggling industry in the deceitful Maelstrooms of the metropolis, or in the dirty, dingy shops of a private country village, are each a scorpion curse to the people. Your very existence is a libel upon the laws by which the rights of ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... in inches and feet; but it may be mentioned, that this instrument should be used in all cases of draining on level ground, even when one is confident that he knows the fall of the ground; for the eye is a very deceitful monitor for informing you of the levelness of ground. It is so light as to admit of being carried in the pocket, whilst its rod may be used as ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... two words," said Dolly. "It is deceitful; it gets hold of a man, and then he cannot get loose from it. You know, Mr. St. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... deceitful, very. It was poor business policy, Sumner. It would never have happened while I ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield

... vigorous and skilful hand which portrays them, but where the human being has been preserved nevertheless, and where, consequently, the lesson given is infinitely more impressive. We can learn little from the strange fantasies of demons—we are not of their kind; but the vices of the deceitful, selfish man or woman humble and warn us. In your remarks on the good girls I concur to the letter; and I must add that I think Blanche, amiable as she is represented, could never have loved her husband after she had discovered that he was utterly despicable. Love is stronger than Cruelty, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... Oregon, but any lover of the woods could be happy under them. Higher still he climbed until the forest spread before and around him like a level park, with thicketed ravines here and there on each side. And presently that deceitful level led to a higher bench upon which the pines towered, and were matched by beautiful trees he took for spruce. Heavily barked, with regular spreading branches, these conifers rose in symmetrical shape ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... with both eyes wide open, about the place till I arrived. The Rose was fortunately off Southampton Quay; we soon reached her, shifted to a larger boat, and I and a stout crew were on our way, in very little time, to have a word with that deceitful Fair Rosamond, which we could still see lying quietly at anchor a couple of miles up the river. We were quickly alongside, but, to our great surprise, found no one on board. There was, however, a considerable quantity of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various

... "Do you know where little boys go who don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he's singing! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, he wouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at your age, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly little boy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speak to ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... beyond the sphere in which they had so long moved. He said, that even those Indians who had been converted, and who had adopted the habits of civilization, were very little improved in their real character; they were as selfish, as deceitful, and as indolent, as those who were still heathens. They had repaid the kindnesses of the missionaries with the basest ingratitude, killing their cattle and swine, and robbing them of their harvests, which they wantonly destroyed. ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... trust the sample when you go your cloth to buy: The woman's most deceitful that's dressed most daintily. The lasses of Havanna ride to mass in coaches yellow, But ere they go they ask if the priest's a handsome fellow. The lasses of Havanna as mulberries are dark, And try to make them fairer ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... Burlman Reynolds, born of Ebony as thou wert, how couldst thou so far lose sight of the besetting weakness of thy race, as thus, in a moment like this, on the critical edge of hazard and hope, to trust thy limbs and senses to the deceitful embraces of sleep? Black sluggard, avaunt! The Fighting ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... The gloomy prison-chamber in the Tower, with its deep and narrow windows piercing the walls of stone, was now all that the earl possessed of worldly prospect; so that there was the less wonder that he should look steadfastly into the gem, and moralize upon earth's deceitful splendor, as men in darkness and ruin seldom fail to do. But the shrewd observations of the countess,—an artful and unprincipled woman,—the pretended friend of Essex, but who had come to glut her revenge for a deed of scorn ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... intrusted throughout the day to the care of some girl, whose parents are as poor as themselves, and are glad to let her earn something towards her support. Numbers of little girls thus go out before they are twelve years old, and teach the little children all they know,—commonly to be deceitful, and not unfrequently to be dishonest. The parents, careless or unsuspecting, only make inquiry when they return home if the children have been good and quiet, and of course receive an answer in the affirmative. In the course of a few years the evil consequences begin to ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... together and make a one, and not disagree and make two: in the natural world they frequently make two, and only make a one with those who are sincere in heart. That they make two is evident from the deceitful and the cunning; especially from hypocrites, flatterers, dissemblers, and liars: but in the spiritual world it is not allowable thus to have a divided mind; for whoever has been internally wicked must also be externally wicked; in like manner, whoever has been good, must be good in each principle: ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... well-being to mean their positive satisfaction or enjoyment; they will reject the notion of sacrifice as painful, and endeavor to realize their own happiness, even to the injury of others. They will seek it one day from liberty, the next from the deceitful promises of a despot; but the practical result of encouraging them to strive for the realization of their own happiness as a right, will inevitably be to lead them to the mere gratification of their own ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing...." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... having seen you on the look-out for prey in your woods, life has been saddened every day." The Wolf, when he perceived the envy of his rival, {replied}: "You have not come hither from any anxiety on my account, but that you may get a share. I know what is your deceitful aim." The Fox enraged, comes to a Shepherd, {and} says: "Shepherd, will you return me thanks, if to-day I deliver up to you the enemy of your flock, so that you need have no more anxiety?" The Shepherd {replied}: ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... states (Contra Julian. iv, 3), "every virtue not only has a contrary vice manifestly distinct from it, as temerity is opposed to prudence, but also a sort of kindred vice, alike, not in truth but only in its deceitful appearance, as cunning is opposed to prudence." This agrees with the Philosopher who says (Ethic. ii, 8) that a virtue seems to have more in common with one of the contrary vices than with the other, as temperance with insensibility, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... with an account of a contentious scene between two of the Grecian chiefs —Achilles and Agamemnon—which resulted in the withdrawal of Achilles and his forces from the Grecian army. The aid of the gods was invoked in behalf of Achilles, and Jupiter sent a deceitful vision to Agamemnon, seeking to persuade him to lead his forces to battle, in order that the Greeks might realize their need of Achilles. Agamemnon first desired to ascertain the feeling or disposition of the army regarding ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... Bandy-legs was heard to remark, as he came puffing along in the rear, determined to keep up with the procession; "if only now them tricky fellers ain't gone and bored more auger holes in my little cedar dinky! You never can tell. 'Pearances are often deceitful, remember, we used to write in our copybooks at school? Well, they are, sometimes. I know it, because I never 'spected to have the river come in on me; and it did, ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... is free to name its conqueror; therefore I should have no reason to complain, if you had spoken to me without dissembling; you would then have sounded the death-knell of my hope; but my heart could have blamed fortune alone. But to see my love encouraged by a deceitful avowal on your part, is so treacherous and perfidious an action, that it cannot meet with too great a punishment; I can allow my resentment to do anything. No, no, after such an outrage, hope for nothing. I am no longer myself, I ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... person for any such office. I hope Stanley does not intend trying to extract money from him; anything rather than that degradation—than that villainy. Stanley was always impracticable, perverse, deceitful, and so foolish with all his cunning and suspicion—so very foolish. Poor Stanley. He's so unscrupulous; I don't know what to think. He said he could force Mark Wylder to leave the country. It must be some bad ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... I find so loving or so truthful a monitor as Thou? Alas! how weak and pitiful I am, and how this poor unsubdued nature of mine craves for things beyond Thee! I know there is no truth but in Thee,—no sincerity, no constancy. I know what men are; how deceitful in their words; how unkind in their judgments. Yet this lower being within my being forever stretches out its longings to sensible things that deceive, and will not rest in Thee, who art all Truth. But I must be brought back to Thee through the sharp pangs ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... forward with that deceitful and sort of disagreable smile of hisen, and took up one corner of my mantilly. It wus cut tab fashion; and he took up the tab, and says he, in a low, insinuatin' voice, and lookin' close at the ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most important of all human relations; and if in that relation we find him to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all his temperance at table, and all his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Norcross, and he said, 'Yes, a son.' You should have seen how that Moore girl changed her tune the moment he admitted that. She'd been very free with him up to that time; but when she found out he was a rich man's son she became as quiet and innocent as a kitten. I hate her; she's a deceitful snip." ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... shall unthinking man substantial deem The forms that fleet through life's deceitful dream? Till at some stroke of Fate the vision flies, And sad realities in prospect rise; And, from Elysian slumbers rudely torn, The startled soul awakes, to think, and mourn. O ye, whose hours in jocund train advance, Whose spirits ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... to a British observer a marked failing in the Bulgarian character: the Bulgars are very nervous to "keep up appearances" and that makes them appear snobbish and deceitful at times. They are ashamed of poverty, a little ashamed, too, of their natural manners. Always they wish to put the best face on things before the world. If a Bulgarian understood that you recognised any crudeness anywhere he liked to pretend that it was not a usual thing but a temporary ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox



Words linked to "Deceitful" :   dishonest, dishonorable



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