Decoy
['diːkɒɪ;dɪ'kɒɪ] or ['dikɔɪ]
Definition
(noun.) a beguiler who leads someone into danger (usually as part of a plot).
(verb.) lure or entrap with or as if with a decoy.
Checker: Salvatore--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To lead into danger by artifice; to lure into a net or snare; to entrap; to insnare; to allure; to entice; as, to decoy troops into an ambush; to decoy ducks into a net.
(n.) Anything intended to lead into a snare; a lure that deceives and misleads into danger, or into the power of an enemy; a bait.
(n.) A fowl, or the likeness of one, used by sportsmen to entice other fowl into a net or within shot.
(n.) A place into which wild fowl, esp. ducks, are enticed in order to take or shoot them.
(n.) A person employed by officers of justice, or parties exposed to injury, to induce a suspected person to commit an offense under circumstances that will lead to his detection.
Typist: Mabel
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Allure, lure, entice, inveigle, seduce, tempt, entrap, ensnare.
n. Lure, allurement.
Editor: Olivia
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Allure, entice, ensnare, entrap, seduce, mislead, inveigle, lure, tempt
ANT:Guide, instruct, warn, conduct, disabuse, extricate
Typist: Nola
Definition
v.t. to allure: to entrap: to lure into a trap.—n. anything intended to allure into a snare: an apparatus of hoops and network for trapping wild-ducks—sometimes duck-coy.—n. Decoy′-duck a wild-duck tamed and trained to entice others into a trap: (fig.) one employed to allure others into a snare.
Checked by Fern
Examples
- Some of them, perhaps, may sometimes decoy a weak customer to buy what he has no occasion for. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- The _matador_ or _espada_ now comes in gravely with a naked sword and a red flag to decoy the bull with, and aims a fatal blow at the animal. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Huss was decoyed to Constance under promise of a safe conduct, and he was then put upon his trial for heresy. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- It was the note with which Holmes had decoyed him. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- Why were they not followed home too, and decoyed into the trap? Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- The wanderer, decoyed into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened tempeSt. What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- If she had decoyed her brother home to blot out the memory of his error by his blood! Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- How could they have decoyed him down there? Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Edited by Clio