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in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Shak. Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Pope.

Containing stratagem; as, a stratagemical epistle. [R.] Swift.

Free from guile, art, craft, or stratagem; characterized by simplicity and sincerity; sincere; guileless; ingenuous; honest; as, an artless mind; an artless tale. They were plain, artless men, without the least appearance of enthusiasm or credulity about them. Porteus. O, how unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's e…

tion; savage; bloody; inhuman; fell. "The victim of a butcherly murder." D. Webster. What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! Shak.

A prisoner taken by force or stratagem, esp., by an enemy, in war; one kept in bondage or in the power of another. Then, when I am thy captive, talk of chains. Milton.

The act of seizing by force, or getting possession of by superior power or by stratagem; as, the capture of an enemy, a vessel, or a criminal. Even with regard to captures made at sea. Bluckstone.

Mean or unfair artifice to perplex a cause and obscure the truth; stratagem; sharp practice; sophistry. Irritated by perpetual chicanery. Hallam.

To gain advantage over by arts, stratagem, or deception; to decieve; to delude; to get around. I circumvented whom I could not gain. Dryden.

A stratagem or plot by which another sratagem or project is defeated. Thinking himself contemned, knowing no countermine against contempt but terror. Sir P. Sidney.

To oppose, as another plot, by plotting; to attempt to frustrate, as a stratagem, by stratagem. Every wile had proved abortive, every plot had been counterplotted. De Quinsey.

A sudden stroke; an unexpected device or stratagem; -- a term used in various ways to convey the idea of promptness and force. Coup de grace (ke gr Etym: [F.], the stroke of mercy with which an executioner ends by death the sufferings of the condemned; hence, a decisive, finishing stroke. -- Coup de main (ke m Etym: […

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

The faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft. Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. Locke. We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. Bacon.

y design; a contrivance; 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.

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…

That which is feigned; an assumed or false appearance; a pretense; a stratagem; a fetch. Courtley's letter is but a feint to get off. Spectator.

rolling and pressure, with lees or size, without spinning or weaving. It were a delicate stratagem to shoe A troop of horse with felt. Shak .

A stratagem by which a thing is indirectly 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.

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

nfair 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.