Chicanery is clever trickery used to gain an advantage. Legal chicanery, political chicanery, sheer chicanery.
It suggests cunning within the rules rather than plain dishonesty, which is why it attaches so readily to lawyers and politicians. The French behind it first meant quibbling in a lawsuit.
1nounchicaneryClever trickery used to gain an advantage.
“The election was won through bribery, forged ballots and other chicanery.”
chicanery is a trickery.
French chicanerie comes from chicaner, to quibble in a lawsuit.
Proto-Indo-European
*skek-
Proto-West Germanic
*skikkijan — to order, arrange
Old Saxon
*skikkian
Middle Low German
schicken
Middle French
chicaner
French
chicanerie — trickery
English, today
chicanery
From French chicanerie (“trickery”), from chicaner, from Middle French chicaner, borrowed from Middle Low German schicken, from Old Saxon skikkian, from Proto-West Germanic skikkijan (“to order, arrange”). Related to German schicken (“to send, ship”), Middle English skekken (“to send forth, issue”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA