Make Your Point > Archived Issues > CHICANERY
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connect today's word to others:
Let's get a feel for how low-down, dirty, sneaky, tricky, shocking, and unsettling chicanery can be by checking out this excerpt from Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad:
"In his glory days, Carpenter elevated the ploys and chicanery of his [body-snatching] trade to a devilish art. He brought rocks in wheelbarrows for undertakers to bury and carried away the deceased. [...] On more than one occasion, Carpenter sold a cadaver to an anatomical school, reported the body to the police, and then had his wife, dressed in mourning clothes, claim it as her son. Whereupon Carpenter sold the body again to another school. It saved the county the expense of burial; no one looked too closely."
That's some serious chicanery, and Carpenter is a serious ch____tan: a smooth-talking, money-grabbing trickster.
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make your point with...
"CHICANERY"
We can trace this word back to Middle French, but we're not sure where it originally came from.
At first, it described two things that petty lawyers were known for: arguing over small details, and technical trickery.
But today, the meaning is more general. Chicanery is the use of sneaky tricks to deceive people.
Pronunciation:
shuh CAY nuh ree
Part of speech:
Uncountable noun.
(Like "milk," "rice," and "advice," uncountable nouns are words for stuff that can’t be broken into exact units. You talk about "some milk," "the rice," and "a lot of advice," but you don’t say "a milk," "three rices," or "many advices."
Likewise, talk about "the chicanery," "this chicanery," "her chicanery," "such chicanery," "no chicanery," and so on,
but don’t say "a chicanery," "one chicanery," or "chicaneries.")
Other forms worth knowing:
The verb is "chicane;" you can chicane on something, chicane about something, or just chicane.
People who chicane are chicaners.
And "chicaning" is the action as well as an adjective: "we're tired of their chicaning," "these chicaning lawyers."
How to use it:
This is a serious word with a harsh tone.
Often we'll talk about a person's (or a group's) chicanery: his chicanery, her chicanery, the staff's chicanery, these lawmakers' chicanery.
You might say that people resort to chicanery, engage in chicanery, accomplish something through chicanery, admit to their chicanery, and so on.
And people can discourage or prevent chicanery, accuse someone of chicanery, expose chicanery, protest chicanery, deplore chicanery, and so on.
Finally, we can get specific and talk about legal chicanery, corporate chicanery, financial chicanery, political chicanery, statistical chicanery, the chicanery of the drug trade, etc.
examples:
Worried that poor test scores would slash their funding, the teachers and faculty resorted to chicanery, quietly bubbling in the right answers themselves.
Amazon.com is still vulnerable to all kinds of chicanery from buyers and sellers alike--posting fake reviews, selling counterfeit products, gaining refunds for products without returning them, temporarily slashing prices to inflate a product's ranking.
study it now:
Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "chicanery" means when you can explain it without saying "petty trickery" or "deviousness."
try it out:
Fill in the blanks: "After (certain people) had been (doing something tricky), (someone else) exposed their chicanery."
Example: "After the sellers had been using dummy accounts to drive up the bidding prices on their own items, a group of buyers exposed their chicanery."
before you review:
Spend at least 20 seconds occupying your mind with the game below. Then try the review questions. Don’t go straight to the review now—let your working memory empty out first.
"Bits & Pieces." This month, we're playing with affixes and combining forms, the bits and pieces of our language, matching them to their meanings. The more of these bits and pieces you know, the better you are at decoding unfamiliar words, which is sooo satisfying! I'll share the answers in each subsequent issue.
Here are the answers from our previous issue:
1. "dextro-" means "the right side."
2. "gyro-" means "rotating or spiraling."
3. "infra-" means "beneath."
4. "-kinesis" means "change or motion."
5. "laevo-" means "the left side."
Try this set today. It's about illness:
1. "-cele" means _____.
2. "-itis" means _____.
3. "-lepsy" means _____.
4. "-opsia" means _____.
5. "-phasia" means _____.
Answer bank:
A. sight disorder
B. speech disorder
C. swelling
D. inflammation
E. seizure
review today's word:
1. The opposite of CHICANING is
A. ABOVEBOARD.
B. BENEVOLENT.
C. CEREBRAL.
2. It was _____, white-collar chicanery.
A. tax evasion
B. a professorship
C. a salary of $1.2 million per year
Answers are below.
a final word:
Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From Liesl's blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Answers to review questions:
1. A
2. A
Let's get a feel for how low-down, dirty, sneaky, tricky, shocking, and unsettling chicanery can be by checking out this excerpt from Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad:
"CHICANERY" We can trace this word back to Middle French, but we're not sure where it originally came from. Other forms worth knowing:
Worried that poor test scores would slash their funding, the teachers and faculty resorted to chicanery, quietly bubbling in the right answers themselves.
Look away from the screen to explain the definition in your own words. You’ll know you understand what "chicanery" means when you can explain it without saying "petty trickery" or "deviousness."
Fill in the blanks: "After (certain people) had been (doing something tricky), (someone else) exposed their chicanery."
Spend at least 20 seconds occupying your mind with the game below. Then try the review questions. Don’t go straight to the review now—let your working memory empty out first.
1. The opposite of CHICANING is
Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. |