Sculduggeries

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A variety of deceitful or dishonest practices designed to achieve a particular outcome
2. Engaging in trickery or underhanded tactics to manipulate situations for personal gain
3. The act of employing cunning schemes and dishonest means to deceive others or escape accountability

Etymology: "Sculduggery" is a word whose origin is genuinely obscure: its first appearances in print come from Scottish and northern English sources of the 18th century, and nobody has settled on a convincing source for the first syllables. What is clear is that it belongs to a family of colourful, slightly jocular words for sly or illicit conduct, and that by the time it reached standard dictionaries it had settled into the sense of underhanded dealing and trickery. The plural "sculduggeries" is simply the plural of "sculduggery," formed by changing the final "y" to "ies" in the usual way, and it is used when someone wants to refer to a number of separate schemes or dishonest acts rather than to the practice in general. The plural is common in speech where the speaker has a list of particular scams or deceits in mind.

Synonyms: deceptions, tricks, schemes, frauds, ruses