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ruse
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  • Even if they think it's a ruse, I hope they'll decide I'm hidden somewhere near it.†   (source)
  • It's Lev—and Risa realizes that her little ruse has backfired.†   (source)
  • Neither Louie nor anyone else knew that Jimmie's attempts to pass as a student were apparently an elaborate ruse.†   (source)
  • When he had seen the insignia of the baking collective, he had assumed it was a ruse.†   (source)
  • Mamaw forbade me to stay at Mom's, under the ruse that Mamaw needed me with her as she grieved.†   (source)
  • I have not yet spoken to him on this matter, but knowing how he operates, I suspect his public manhunt for Agent Neveu and Mr. Langdon was part of a ruse to lure out the real killer.†   (source)
  • His parents had moved away for good; the trip to Ghazni had been a ruse.†   (source)
  • The pretense that he was calling from the dignified confines of Mercer House was a difficult ruse for Williams to carry off, as I discovered the first time I spoke with him.†   (source)
  • I don't think that'll help him find the Snitch, but maybe it's a clever ruse.†   (source)
  • But the couple saw through her ruse to get around rent control.†   (source)
  • With the help of your Red brethren, you deceived us with technological tricks and ruses, infiltrating my own family.†   (source)
  • You and I know, of course, that Mr. Poe was panicking over Sunny and the Incredibly Deadly Viper, but all Violet knew was that whatever ruse her siblings had devised was still working.†   (source)
  • But really the job was a ruse; she and Gogol had decided that it was best for her to return to New York alone.†   (source)
  • Perhaps, in theory, but no. In order to keep up the ruse, she could never leave your side.†   (source)
  • This way Mr. Broks can read the letter without suspecting a ruse.†   (source)
  • The promises made to guest workers and their families were acruel ruse, an evil deception.†   (source)
  • Still, the ruse disturbed him.†   (source)
  • I suppose the ruse was unavoidable, though I wish they had told me.†   (source)
  • That night I lay wide awake in bed waiting for Mommy to get home from work at two A.M., whereupon she laid the ruse out as I sat at the kitchen table in my tattered Fruit of the Loom underwear.†   (source)
  • No doubt they did have a wireless on board, but this was just a ruse.†   (source)
  • And you'll make it look like that's a ruse, obviously.†   (source)
  • One of its spies admitted in court that a gift of baby clothes had been a ruse to find out where Morris lived.†   (source)
  • He threw only enough at me to keep himself in competition — a clever ruse.†   (source)
  • Using the Bible as a ruse to be with each other.†   (source)
  • I am glad the ruse was successful.†   (source)
  • Are you also of the view that it was simply a ruse to scupper the nationalist fringe of his own domestic party?†   (source)
  • Simon is alerted: he is familiar with such ruses, he knows the cabals of mothers.†   (source)
  • "I'm sure this is all just an elaborate ruse to keep me traveling with you," he groused.†   (source)
  • No matter the ruse, it didn't work.†   (source)
  • That the person she thought you were all these years was a ruse, a trick.†   (source)
  • It may be argued here that the Bene Gesserit sent their Missionaria Protectiva onto Arrakis centuries earlier to implant something like this legend as safeguard should any members of the school be trapped there and require sanctuary, and that this legend of "the voice from the outer world" was properly to be ignored because it appeared to be the standard Bene Gesserit ruse.†   (source)
  • As if he were in on the ruse, Marley without prompting shifted positions and rested his chin across the baby's stomach, his head bigger than her whole body, and let out a long sigh as if he were saying, When are those two going to get home?†   (source)
  • Hatsue's walks had been a ruse, just as Fujiko had suspected.†   (source)
  • That's just where I'm trying to be tricky, with every crafty ruse I know.†   (source)
  • My little ruse must have worked, because Juntaro seemed to have no idea that anything was the matter.†   (source)
  • The ruse worked, the hands slept again, but other parts of my body began to wake.†   (source)
  • I add the aptitude test to a mental list of things that were once so important to me, cast aside because it was just a ruse to get these people the information or result they wanted.†   (source)
  • How was the good-hearted Mr. Ziegler to know that nothing ailed the machine-that this was a ruse devised to rob and kill would-be Samaritans?†   (source)
  • Botha's ruse did not fool the people, as more than 80 percent of eligible Indian and Coloured voters boycotted the election to the new houses of Parliament in 1984.†   (source)
  • "Whatever you think is going on, just remember it's a ruse.†   (source)
  • But we have no idea until it comes out that it's a ruse—so there is this genuine moment of fear.†   (source)
  • The ruse had almost fooled me.†   (source)
  • That's a common ruse in conventional bombmaking, and the same rule, we can assume, holds true for pseudo-nukers.†   (source)
  • They laughed then, uproariously, about the speed with which they had run, the pose they had assumed, the ruse they had invented to escape or decrease some threat to their manliness, their humanness.†   (source)
  • Why the ruses and deceit?†   (source)
  • That was a ruse to use on this individual and might scare him off?†   (source)
  • Bert suspected that the errand to fetch fresh water had been a ruse to allow the boy to sneak on board, and said so.†   (source)
  • That was a ruse we used for the media.†   (source)
  • Just as he finished congratulating himself on his innocent ruse he was bumped hard by one of his opponents and knocked to his knees.†   (source)
  • That business about the punishment loops was a ruse concocted to ensnare those ymbrynes whom the corrupted weren't able to capture in their raids.†   (source)
  • That would be her ruse to turn the conversation away from the hazardous terrain of a stranger's flat to the intimate world of Tomas's thoughts.†   (source)
  • Eskinder had wanted to trap all the army generals the previous night, using the same ruse that had trapped the other loyalists.†   (source)
  • "It doesn't matter if it's all a big ruse," I said.†   (source)
  • Cesar's ruse worked.†   (source)
  • All of what she'd said to me might easily be a ruse, intended to get me to help her to the docks, and to Mercy of Kalr, so she could destroy this station herself.†   (source)
  • Perhaps Washington found it impossible to believe, or suspected that it was indeed a ruse.†   (source)
  • It was an understandable ruse-look-alikes, several months' absence, minor surgery and programming-all quite normal in the abnormal world of haute couture.†   (source)
  • An espionage agent par excellence, a master of ruse de guerre.†   (source)
  • Though he did not speak the Volantene tongue as well as Quentyn, their ruse required that he speak for them.†   (source)
  • JFK persuaded Garbo to arrive early to the White House dinner party in order to rehearse her lines for Kennedy's elaborate ruse.†   (source)
  • Is this a ruse or a test of some sort?†   (source)
  • Though the prosecution had said the translator was a ruse being used to obscure the true facts, Judson had met with Covey in the presence of all counsel and was convinced that seaman's ability to understand the blacks was genuine.†   (source)
  • Years later we realized her marks were a ruse.†   (source)
  • But now I realize that the whole couldn't-come thing was just a ruse.†   (source)
  • To my relief and surprise, my little ruse had worked better than I'd hoped.†   (source)
  • Is he really dead, or was that shootout a ruse, too?†   (source)
  • Her stratagem—fastening the newspaper-wrapped package to her body beneath her dress in a way that would make her appear corpulently pregnant—was shopworn enough by now almost to call attention to itself rather than work as a ruse; she had tried it anyway, urged on by the farm woman who had sold her the precious meat.†   (source)
  • Unwilling to run the risk of having Wilson Jordon, the physiologist who had developed the Rhodopsin Ionizer for Monarch picked up and questioned by the police, Reich phoned Keno Quizzard and devised a ruse to get Dr. Jordon off the planet.†   (source)
  • Now all manner of questions raced through her mind: Had the sulfa pills too been part of the ruse?†   (source)
  • Besides, it's the girlfriend in the ICU that's necessitating Adam's ruse to begin with.†   (source)
  • I believe I thought of it as simply another ruse, Mr Stevens, to annoy you.†   (source)
  • It was possible that Commander Root would try another ruse.†   (source)
  • But somehow Max did not think that Prusias's cane was a ruse.†   (source)
  • I apologize for the ruse, Trignon, but it was for your own benefit.†   (source)
  • However, this was just a ruse to conceal the body's actual location.†   (source)
  • They used the ruse of telling my captors that I was an American.†   (source)
  • "If so, it is a ruse of surpassing cleverness," said Varys.†   (source)
  • It's a cocktail to keep my body fooled; it's anyone's guess how long this ruse might continue.†   (source)
  • This invitation Cersei sent us is a ruse.†   (source)
  • "Might this be some ruse?" asked Littlefinger.†   (source)
  • No one will know your defection is a ruse but those of us in this tent.†   (source)
  • This wedding could well be just some ruse to lure Stannis into a trap.†   (source)
  • "The best ruses always have some seed of truth," said the Tattered Prince.†   (source)
  • Could this all just be a ruse?†   (source)
  • Tooling around the island in borrowed cars, they came upon several airfields, but when they drew closer, they realized that all of the planes and equipment were fake, made of plywood, an elaborate ruse designed to fool Japanese reconnaissance planes.†   (source)
  • My opponent's ruse worked: I tired.†   (source)
  • That was a ruse.†   (source)
  • With any luck, the centaur hadn't run a seismology test on the manor grounds, or his ruse might be discovered.†   (source)
  • The old dung heap ruse.†   (source)
  • I regret my little ruse, Lord Petyr, but when we spoke, I could not know the Dornishmen would accept my offer.†   (source)
  • "Why the ruse?" he asked.†   (source)
  • And this time it would not be a ruse.†   (source)
  • The ruse would not fool her, but it would keep her guessing as to what he was actually up to, and the longer he could maintain that uncertainty, the better.†   (source)
  • I hadn't known it was all a ruse.†   (source)
  • Had this all been a ruse, then?†   (source)
  • Word of the ruse, however, seeped out into the world and our treasure eventually attracted interested parties.†   (source)
  • Roran and his companions remained frozen in place, like hunted rabbits, afraid that the Ra'zac's departure might be a ruse to flush them into the open or that the creature's twin might be close behind.†   (source)
  • But now that I'd had a chance to realize that she was really home, that her defection was only a ruse because Edward had to believe that she'd abandoned us, I was beginning to feel pretty irritated with her.†   (source)
  • The ruse that will get him in the door is a fake bottle of medication, which Powell will claim was sent by Seward's physician.†   (source)
  • Whitey would trot out Grog, who was sometimes housed in Seabiscuit's stall to make the ruse more convincing.†   (source)
  • In order for the ruse to work, however, Blodhgarm and his companions will have to stay here as well, both to avoid arousing suspicion and for reasons of defense.†   (source)
  • The ruse succeeded in part, for when the sun rose, Roran saw that the sloops had fallen back to the northwest another mile or so, though they soon made up the lost distance.†   (source)
  • Even if Eragon broke down the door and cut her loose, she would still believe that it was a ruse of her captors.†   (source)
  • Neither of those were options, so instead she decided to stretch the truth just a bit, under the ruse of verifying the arrest report.†   (source)
  • The witches suspect that Rowan has attempted a clever ruse and is using a disavowed Agent to take custody of these children.†   (source)
  • "But you're not a charge, you're a spy," said Max, stroking the lymrill's quills "An infiltration specialist, a master of ruse de guerre …"†   (source)
  • There was a rumor that Seabiscuit's lameness was a ruse designed to avoid a loss to War Admiral, and an awful lot of people believed it.†   (source)
  • "Suppose that's a ruse.†   (source)
  • Do you think our ruse was discovered?†   (source)
  • An instant later, he realized that it had been a ruse and that Murtagh was moving around toward his right in an attempt to get past his guard.†   (source)
  • With every day that passes, it becomes more likely that the Empire will discover our ruse and Galbatorix will strike at the Varden when I am not there to fend off Murtagh and Thorn.†   (source)
  • "It's a ruse of the pickpockets," he says, explaining that thieves spread such disinformation to fleece the crowd as people rush for the exit.†   (source)
  • Right—my ruse to get inside.†   (source)
  • Drawing himself up with great dignity, Clovis said, "If I agree, then you must do me the courtesy of explaining why this ruse were necessary, an' why these people are here an' where they're from.†   (source)
  • Whether the defenders of Aroughs were aware of his ruse, he was not entirely sure, but he thought it likely, given the rather limited number of horsemen gathering in front of the city.†   (source)
  • I searched for some time for a ruse that might get them into River-run before I thought to hide them in plain sight.†   (source)
  • The images would appear to be perfect living, breathing, thinking replicas of Eragon and Saphira, but their minds would be empty, and if anyone peered into them, the ruse would be discovered.†   (source)
  • "I'd sooner pose as poor than evil," Quentyn had declared, when Gerris had explained his ruse to them.†   (source)
  • "I am not a squire," Quentyn had protested when Gerris Drinkwater—known here as Dornish Gerrold, to distinguish him from Gerrold Redback and Black Gerrold, and sometimes as Drink, since the big man had slipped and called him that—suggested the ruse.†   (source)
  • Ollie Nuper was exceedingly drunk, in the first place, and in the second place, the box of pamphlets was a ruse, a device for escaping Marguerite and moving on to further adventures.†   (source)
  • She wipes away blindwoman tears, puts her sewing away in the woven basket, the ancient ruse of her long wait, house empty, barren of children lovers tradesmen friends, her husband still gone, vanished from the world like a sailor, no one knows where.†   (source)
  • I was relieved to see that my ruse served to distract the clerk's attention from Sophie; the dewlapped old gentleman, being Southern (like so many Washington hirelings), was impressed by my credentials and also had a Southerner's genial garrulousness: "Have a nice stay, Reverend, you and the missus.†   (source)
  • See you, that little bottle I pretended to find was a ruse.†   (source)
  • Was this whole thing a ruse to confuse and trap him?†   (source)
  • Shigeyuki wanted one, and he resorted to a ruse.†   (source)
  • During the singing the preacher tried yet another ruse; he intoned mournfully, letting his voice melt into the singing, yet casting his words above it: "How many mothers of these young men are here tonight?"†   (source)
  • You can grumble at it; you can say it's a ruse or feint of gifted people to sidetrack you from the viper's tangle and ugly knottedness of their desires, but if the art of it is deep enough and carried far enough into great play, it gets above its origin.†   (source)
  • He suddenly saw through Yus-sie's ruse.†   (source)
  • The ruse did not succeed.†   (source)
  • "Yes, these are my children," said the Sun when they emerged—but that was only a ruse; for he was still planning to trick them.†   (source)
  • His mother looked strange when he entered-so strange that for a moment, he thought his ruse had failed, he thought himself discovered.†   (source)
  • Krsna the king went against them, but in keeping with his divine nature, won the victory playfully, by simple ruse.†   (source)
  • The creatures of this world, gods included, are all tricked, my Lord God, by your playful ruses; that is why they continue in their futile round of birth, life agony, old age, and death.†   (source)
  • My Lord God, deluded by your playful ruses, I too was a prey of the world, wandering in a labyrinth of error, netted in the meshes of ego-consciousness.†   (source)
  • "Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough," observed Bradstreet thoughtfully.†   (source)
  • This posing at the piano and over the album was only a little ruse adopted by way of precaution.†   (source)
  • After all it was a ruse of the Thenardiers to obtain money.†   (source)
  • Among these men, to beat means to feign; one beats a malady; ruse is their strength.†   (source)
  • This man and this woman were ruse and rage wedded—a hideous and terrible team.†   (source)
  • This ruse of Jim's did not sound in the least logical or plausible to Joan, but it was readily accepted by the bandits.†   (source)
  • Then a singular thought confronted her that made her hold up this simple ruse—which hurt her, though it was well justified—against the deceit she had wittingly and eagerly used toward Lassiter.†   (source)
  • You were going to employ your tears as a ruse in order to borrow money, but you also say—in fact, you have sworn to the fact—that independently of this your confession was made with an honourable motive.†   (source)
  • It seemed hopeless to pursue the inquiry any farther, but it was clear that in spite of Holmes's ruse we had no proof that Barrymore had not been in London all the time.†   (source)
  • What if his lying down were a ruse?†   (source)
  • And by this ruse she would thus be able to see him again and find out just how much he did interest her and what he was like.†   (source)
  • … Seek a protector, choose a patron out, And like the crawling ivy round a tree That licks the bark to gain the trunk's support, Climb high by creeping ruse instead of force?†   (source)
  • But he was ashamed; he would look such a fool in his own eyes if he gave in now; his uncle would chuckle at the success of the headmaster's ruse.†   (source)
  • She saw through their simple ruses.†   (source)
  • It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul.†   (source)
  • For the first time, it struck her as a ruse, or that he said it so that she would not think of asking for things.†   (source)
  • Duane concluded, and his friends all agreed with him, that the new ranger's main purpose in the Nueces country was to capture or kill Buck Duane, and that this message was simply an original and striking ruse, the daring of which might appeal to certain outlaws.†   (source)
  • But by ruses and coercion, his family had taken him away from her—and the lad had probably been repulsed by her illness, too, which by then had begun to evidence itself in various violent eruptions.†   (source)
  • It developed then that Jett's apparent kindness had been only a ruse to get her away so he could converse with his wife in low, earnest tones.†   (source)
  • DE GUICHE: The ruse succeeded, though!†   (source)
  • It was really a ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondency--a ruse of which she was not herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness.†   (source)
  • What blasphemous nonsense, ultimately, to measure the "distance" of some star or other from the earth in trillions of miles or even light-years and to imagine that by the ruse of numbers you had given the human spirit an insight into the nature of infinity and eternity—when infinity had absolutely nothing to do with size, nor eternity with duration and distances in time, had nothing in common with the notions of natural science, were the abrogation of what we meant by the word…†   (source)
  • Yet, simultaneously, his very recent and yet decidedly compelling indifference dictating, he was almost ready now to assume that this might be little more than a ruse or lovelorn device or bit of strategy intended to retain or reënlist his interest in spite of himself—a thought which he was only in part ready to harbor.†   (source)
  • His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will probably pass round to the right of the Moskva.†   (source)
  • He added with the air of a profound thinker, "One is indebted sometimes to fortune, sometimes to ruse, for the happy issue of great enterprises."†   (source)
  • In her little bundle she had provided a store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients for quickening the speed of the child, rolling the apple some yards before them, when the boy would run with all his might after it; and this ruse, often repeated, carried them over many a half-mile.†   (source)
  • The presence of the women had induced the attempt at this ruse, the strength of these feebler members of the party being unequal to the effort of escaping from the pursuit of warriors.†   (source)
  • As requested, he sealed up Lucetta's letters, and put the parcel aside till the day she had appointed; this plan of returning them by hand being apparently a little ruse of the young lady for exchanging a word or two with him on past times.†   (source)
  • "You're wrong ag'in, Quartermaster, you're wrong ag'in," answered Pathfinder, resorting to a ruse to magnify his force.†   (source)
  • The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid.†   (source)
  • Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the ruse by which he had been once sent away.†   (source)
  • As soon as Mabel had spoken, all eyes were turned upward, and beheld the muzzle of a rifle cautiously thrust through a hole, June having resorted again to a ruse which had already proved so successful.†   (source)
  • This ruse was scarcely adopted before the young man had a proof how much he had underrated the intelligence of his enemies.†   (source)
  • The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae's suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him on to the next wood, where might be effectually compassed what, from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had failed to do earlier in the day.†   (source)
  • This ruse succeeded, and Deerslayer by rubbing his limbs, stamping his feet, and moving about, soon regained the circulation, recovering all his physical powers as effectually as if nothing had occurred to disturb them.†   (source)
  • As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen miles from Hollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal of a truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to Murat: Schonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805, at eight o'clock in the morning To PRINCE MURAT, I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure.†   (source)
  • Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, indefatigable;…†   (source)
  • This tyrant of the human mind, which ruses on it prey through a thousand avenues, almost as soon as men begin to think and feel, and which seldom relinquishes its iron sway until they cease to do either, had made some impression on even the just propensities of this individual, who probably offered in these particulars, a fair specimen of what absence from bad example, the want of temptation to go wrong, and native good feeling can render youth.†   (source)
  • No man here will drive me from the field against my will, not by main force, not by a ruse.†   (source)
  • Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses.†   (source)
  • Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the shelter or shanty together and the élite society of oilskin and company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their dolce far niente.†   (source)
  • I think you are making up excuses, And your arguments, monsieur, seem like ruses.†   (source)
  • Don't excuse yourself through circumlocution: You've already made your own resolution, And you've seized upon a frivolous excuse To justify this lamentable ruse.†   (source)
  • Perhaps these sweet words are a decorous ruse Designed to disrupt my hymeneal news; And, if I may speak quite freely with you, I won't believe that all you say is true Until I'm assured that you couldn't lie By a few of those favors for which I sigh.†   (source)
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