Stratagem
['strætədʒəm]
Definition
(n.) An artifice or trick in war for deceiving the enemy; hence, in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination.
Checker: Louie
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. Artifice, device, manœuvre, intrigue, wile, trick, fetch, finesse, ruse, dodge, crafty device, artful contrivance, stroke of policy.
Typed by Irwin
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Artifice, tactics, trick, contrivance, generalship, manoeuvre, device,machination, plot, plan, deceit, imposition
ANT:Blunder, defeat, mismanoeuvre, miscontrivance, mismanagement
Checked by Laurie
Definition
n. an artifice esp. in war: a plan for deceiving an enemy or gaining an advantage: any artifice generally.—adjs. Strateget′ic -al Strateg′ic -al pertaining to or done by strategy.—adv. Strateget′ically.—ns. Strateget′ics Strat′egy generalship or the art of conducting a campaign and manœuvring an army: artifice or finesse generally.—adv. Strateg′ically.—n. Strat′egist one skilled in strategy.
Checked by Brett
Examples
- At last it was secured by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and something. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- He effected, by stratagem, the escape of the prisoner. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- Isn't that a stratagem? William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- Can he possibly preserve a right to that character, if by fraud, stratagem, or contrivance, he avoids that payment in whole or in part? Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- But the stratagem was defeated by the weather. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- The author, by an extraordinary stratagem, prevents an invasion. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
- I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a SHIKARI, said Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of them of nearly four years' duration (it failed), and the English only captured it by stratagem. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- Stratagem should have been tried, if persuasion failed. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- The whole object of the stratagem was now disclosed to me. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- She simply continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by stratagem. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- They thought his life was a stratagem and his death a trick. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Necessity excused stratagem, but stratagem was limited by the dread of offending Dorothea. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- That can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- I did,' said the son; and he proceeded to relate, in as few words as possible, how he had fallen a ready dupe to the stratagems of Job Trotter. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- All stratagems are fair in love, sir. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- Briggs saw the stratagems as clearly as possible. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
Typed by Dave