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trickery; artifice. [Obs.] Hacket.

A turn or circuit in running to escape pursues; hence, a trick; a shift; an artifice. These men are too well acquainted with the chase to be flung off by any false steps or doubles. Addison.

A turning and winding; as, the doubling of a hunted hare; shift; trick; artifice. Dryden.

inations rise in a scale of twelves, as of feet and inches. The system is used chiefly by artificers in computing the superficial and solid contents of their work.

To avoid slyly, by artifice, stratagem, or dexterity; to escape from in a covert manner; to mock by an unexpected escape; to baffle; as, to elude an officer; to elude detection, inquiry, search, comprehension; to elude the force of an argument or a blow. Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain, Then, hid in shades, elud…

Act of eluding; adroit escape, as by artifice; a mockery; a cheat; trickery.

To catch in a trap; to insnare; hence, to catch, as in a trap, by artifices; to involve in difficulties or distresses; to catch or involve in contradictions; as, to be entrapped by the devices of evil men. A golden mesh, to entrap the hearts of men. Shak.

To get away from by artifice; to avoid by dexterity, subterfuge, address, or ingenuity; to elude; to escape from cleverly; as, to evade a blow, a pursuer, a punishment; to evade the force of an argument. The heathen had a method, more truly their own, of evading the Christian miracles. Trench.

Tending to evade, or marked by evasion; elusive; shuffling; avoiding by artifice. Thus he, though conscious of the ethereal guest, Answered evasive of the sly request. Pope. Stammered out a few evasive phrases. Macaulay. -- E*va"sive*ly , adv. -- E*va"sive*ness, n.

ly brought to pass, or by which one thing seems intended and another is done; a trick; an artifice. Every little fetch of wit and criticism. South.

To delay legislation, by dilatory motions or other artifices. [political cant or slang, U.S.] Bartlett.

Subtilty of contrivance to gain a point; artifice; stratagem. This is the artificialest piece of finesse to persuade men into slavery. Milton.

To seek to obtain by artifice, or indirectly to seek to draw forth; as, to fish for compliments. Any other fishing question. Sir W. Scott.

To cheat; to trick; to impose on. Shak. To fob off, to shift off by an artifice; to put aside; to delude with a trick."A conspiracy of bishops could prostrate and fob off the right of the people." Milton.

Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick. If success a lover's toil attends, Few ask, if fraud or force attained his ends. Pope.

Obtained or performed by artifice; as, fraudulent conquest. Milton.

useous; esp., offensive from excess of praise; as, fulsome flattery. And lest the fulsome artifice should fail Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil. Cowper.

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

Artifice; contrivance. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Contrivance; artifice; a trap; a snare. Chaucer. Spenser.