tricking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of trick.

   The magician was tricking the audience with sleight of hand.

   By tricking the guards, the prisoners slipped past the gate.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty. After a form of be it builds the progressive (they were tricking us), and in noun positions it is a gerund (by tricking the guards). It carries every meaning of the verb, not only deceiving. With up, off or out it means dressing or adorning, as in tricking out a room in ribbons, the same idea that survives in the old noun for finery.

2. 2
   adjectivearchaic

   Given to deception; relying on trickery and cunning to mislead others.

   The tricking advisor whispered false promises to win the king's favor.

   [I]t is the degenerate fondness for tricking short-cuts, and little fallacious facilities, that has in so many parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers.

   1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

   Note

   An adjective now rare enough to read as archaic. Edmund Burke, in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), blamed arbitrary governments on "the degenerate fondness for tricking short-cuts." Because it looks exactly like the verb form, a modern reader may hear an action in progress rather than a quality. Where a settled trait is meant, deceptive or deceitful says it plainly. It compares with more and most.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Fine clothing or ornamental decoration added to dress something up.

   The bride's gown was covered in lace and golden tricking.

   He admired the elaborate tricking on the ceremonial robes.

   Similartrimming, ornamentation, decoration, embellishment, finery

   Note

   Shakespeare's word for costume: in The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597) the plotters send for "properties / And tricking for our fairies," the props and finery for a disguise. The noun belongs with the verb's adorning sense, the one heard in tricked out, rather than with deceit. A costume that disguises sits neatly between the two. It takes a plural, trickings.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3