Other forms: decoys
A decoy is something set up to draw attention the wrong way. A decoy duck, act as a decoy, a decoy car.
The original was a trap: a pond with netted channels that lured wild ducks in. Modern military decoys work by imitating the signature a weapon looks for rather than the thing itself. The word came from Dutch, where de kooi means the cage.
1noundecoySomething set up to draw attention the wrong way.
“The hunter put a wooden duck on the lake as a decoy.”
decoy is a lure.
From Dutch de kooi, the cage, naming a netted pond used to trap wild ducks.
From Dutch - de + kooi, literally "the cage". Possibly related to verb coy (which itself may have been influenced by decoy).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA