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nce; invention; arrangement; design; plan. [Obs.] Consider the admirable contrivement and artifice of this great fabric. Glanvill. Active to meet their contrivements. Sir G. Buck.

ary agreement; that which is in accordance with the fashion, tradition, or usage. All the artifice and conventionalism of life. Hawthorne. They gaze on all with dead, dim eyes, -- wrapped in conventionalisms, . . . simulating feelings according to a received standart. F. W. Robertson.

Dishonest management, or artifice. [Obs.] the very jesuits themselves . . . can not possibly devise any juggling conveyance how to shift it off. Hakewill.

One given to artifices or secret practices; a juggler; a cheat; a thief. [Obs.] Shak.

sons, that it may not be opened except in the presence of all; a mark added to that of an artificer of gold or silver work by the Goldsmiths' Company of London, to attest the standard quality of the gold or silver; a mark added to an ancient coin or medal, to show either its change of value or that it was taken from an…

A plot or artifice opposed to another. L'Estrange.

The artifices, intrigues, and plottings, at courts.

Court policy; the character of a courtier; artifice of a court; court-craft; finesse. [Obs.] She [the Queen] being composed of courtship and Popery. Fuller.

Deceit; fraud; artifice. [Obs.] Chaucer.

The art or practice of cozening; artifice; fraud. Shak.

Cunning, art, or skill, in a bad sense, or applied to bad purposes; artifice; guile; skill or dexterity employed to effect purposes by deceit or shrewd devices. You have that crooked wisdom which is called craft. Hobbes. The chief priets and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. Mar…

Dexterity in devising and effecting a purpose; cunning; artifice; stratagem. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. Job. v. 13.

One skilled in some trade or manual occupation; an artificer; a mechanic.

An artifice; trick; tricky device; subterfuge. For all yuor brags, hooks, and crooks. Cranmer.

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. Fri…

That which deceives or is intended to deceive; false representation; artifice; cheat; fraud. There was of course room for vast deception. Motley.

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. Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy. Thomson. E'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy. Goldsmith.…

ntrivance; an invention; a project; a scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice. His device in against Babylon, to destroy it. Jer. li. 11. Their recent device of demanding benevolences. Hallam. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty. Job v. 12.

buse the people. South. If men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves or artifice, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. J. Adams.

starting aside; hence, an artful device to evade, deceive, or cheat; a cunning trick; an artifice. [Colloq.] Some, who have a taste for good living, have many harmless arts, by which they improve their banquet, and innocent dodges, if we may be permitted to use an excellent phrase that has become vernacular since the…