Deceptive

How to spell deceptive

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce deceptive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does deceptive mean?

1. adjectiveGiving a false or misleading impression, often deliberately.

Deceptive in a sentence

• The advert used deceptive pricing to hide the monthly fees.

• The calm surface of the river was deceptive, because the current beneath was strong.

Where does deceptive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb decipere, which literally meant 'to catch by trickery' or 'to ensnare', formed from the prefix de- 'from, away' and capere 'to take or seize'. The idea was of taking someone in, capturing them through a falsehood rather than by force. The past participle deceptus gave rise to the Late Latin deceptivus, meaning 'tending to mislead', and English adopted the adjective in the early 1600s, drawing on both that Latin form and the related French déceptif. The same capere root is hidden inside a surprising family of everyday words such as capture, receive, accept, and conceive, all of which involve some form of taking. Remembering that cept comes from a 'taking' root helps fix the middle of the spelling, since the tricky part is the unstressed -tive ending that sounds like -tiv.

How the word is built

• de- (from)
• cept (from capere: to take, seize)
• -ive (adjective suffix, tending to)