Deception

How to spell deception

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce deception

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does deception mean?

1. nounThe act of deliberately misleading someone by hiding the truth or presenting something false.

Deception in a sentence

• The auditor uncovered years of financial deception in the accounts.

• His calm manner hid a careful deception about where the money had gone.

Where does deception come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English through Old French deception in the 1400s, drawn ultimately from the Late Latin deceptionem, the noun built on the verb decipere, which literally meant 'to catch' or 'to ensnare' and so came to mean 'to deceive'. That verb combines the prefix de-, here suggesting 'away' or 'down', with capere, meaning 'to take' or 'to seize', so the original image was of taking someone in or catching them out. The same capere root surfaces in a large family of English words, including capture, receive, accept and conceive, all of which carry a hidden 'take' inside them. The spelling trap lives in that buried Latin root: the sound is a soft 's', but the letters are -cept- followed by -ion, giving the smooth 'shun' ending. Keeping the c in mind as the descendant of capere helps explain why deception is never spelled with an s in the middle.

How the word is built

• de- (away, down)
• cept (from capere: to take, seize)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)