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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Deceit \De*ceit"\, noun [OF. deceit, des[,c]ait, decept (cf. deceite, de[,c]oite), fr. L. deceptus deception, fr. decipere. See {Deceive}.]
1. An attempt or disposition to deceive or lead into error; any declaration, artifice, or practice, which misleads another, or causes him to believe what is false; a contrivance to entrap; deception; a wily device; fraud.
Making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit. --Amos viii. 5.
Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. --Milton.
Yet still we hug the dear deceit. --N. Cotton.
2. (Law) Any trick, collusion, contrivance, false representation, or underhand practice, used to defraud another. When injury is thereby effected, an action of deceit, as it called, lies for compensation.
Syn: Deception; fraud; imposition; duplicity; trickery; guile; falsifying; double-dealing; stratagem. See {Deception}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
deceit
noun
1: the quality of being fraudulent [syn: {fraudulence}]
2: a misleading falsehood [syn: {misrepresentation}, {deception}]
3: the act of deceiving [syn: {deception}, {dissembling}, {dissimulation}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
90 Moby Thesaurus words for "deceit": art, artful dodge, artfulness, artifice, blind, cheating, chicane, chicanery, con, con game, conspiracy, contrivance, coup, craft, craftiness, cunning, cute trick, deceitfulness, deception, defrauding, design, device, dishonesty, dissemblance, dissimulation, dodge, double-cross, double-dealing, duplicity, expedient, fakement, falseheartedness, falseness, feint, fetch, flam, flimflam, fraud, fraudulence, furtiveness, gambit, game, gimmick, grift, guile, gyp, hanky-panky, hoax, humbug, hypocrisy, indirection, insidiousness, intrigue, jugglery, knavery, little game, maneuver, misrepresentation, monkey business, move, overreaching, plot, ploy, racket, red herring, ruse, scam, scheme, sell, sham, shift, shiftiness, sleight, slyness, sneak attack, sneakiness, stratagem, strategy, subterfuge, surreptitiousness, swindle, tactic, trapping, treacherousness, treachery, trick, trickery, underhandedness, wile, wily device
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