5 uses
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Definition
the act of lying to or misleading someone
- Though true cylinders without—within, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom.Chapters 1-3 — Loomings; The Carpet-Bag; The Spouter-Inn (48% in)
- There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.Chapters 10-12 — A Bosom Friend; Nightgown; Biographical (27% in)
- ...natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that...Chapters 40-42 — Midnight, Forecastle; Moby Dick; The Whiteness of the Whale (98% in)
- For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter—this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity.Chapters 46-48 — Surmises; The Mat-Maker; The First Lowering (30% in)
- Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not been so long a one as before.Chapters 133-135 — The Chase—First Day; The Chase—Second Day; The Chase—Third Day (84% in)
There are no more uses of "deceit" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)