chicanery

[prettygoodword]

chicanery - n., deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry; trickery or sharp practices (as at law).


One of those words you know can have trouble defining exactly. The realm of manipulations is more quibbles of wording and deception than fraud or threat -- though it can encompass lies, especially plausibly defensible ones. Pronounced either shi-KAY-neh-ree or chi-KAY-neh-ree, by which you might guess it was borrowed from. And you'd be right -- borrowed some time shortly after 1600, in fact, from chicanerie trickery, from earlier chicaner, to quibble, but before that the trail gets obscure. One guess is from Middle Low German schikken, to arrange, while another is "from the name of a golf-like game once played in Languedoc" -- because as every true Frenchman knows, you can't trust those Provençals.

---L.

Comments

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

I encountered 'chicanery' after being familiar with the motorsports 'chicane', which made it instantly comprehensible - the image of forcing someone to weave back and forth, or of dodging back and forth oneself, captures the sense of the word nicely.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Had to look that one up, but yes, that fits excellently.

A coworker tells me that the equivalent German loanword from French is used to describe bureaucratic hoops -- the every-form-correct-thank-you-very-much sort. Another way of slicing the concept.

---L.