Other forms: ruses
A ruse is a trick used to deceive. A clever ruse, an elaborate ruse, see through the ruse.
It is admiring more often than not: a ruse is ingenious where a lie is merely false, and it usually involves a staged situation rather than a plain untruth. Ruse de guerre is the legal term for a lawful deception in war — false radio traffic, dummy tanks — which is permitted where perfidy is not. Note that the word came into English from hunting, where a ruse was a doubling back to shake off the dogs.
1nounruseA trick used to deceive.
“The burglars used a clever ruse, pretending to be from the water company.”
synonyms: trick, stratagem
ruse is a deceptive trick.
Old French ruse first meant the evasive doubling back of a hunted animal, from ruser, to use cunning. The trick belonged to the quarry before it belonged to the trickster.
Latin
rursus — backward; on the contrary; again, in return
Old French
rëuse
Middle English
rūse — evasive movements of a pursued animal; circuitous course taken by a hunter to pursue a game animal
English, today
ruse
Built from
From Middle English rūse (“evasive movements of a pursued animal; circuitous course taken by a hunter to pursue a game animal”), from Old French rëuse, ruse (“evasive movements of a pursued animal; trickery”) (modern French ruse (“trick, ruse; cunning, guile”)), from ruser (“to use cunning, to be crafty, beguile”), possibly from Latin rursus (“backward; on the contrary; again, in return”) or Latin recūsāre, from recūsō (“to decline, refuse; to object to, protest, reject”). a doublet of recuse and rouse in the latter case. The verb is derived from the noun. Compare Middle French ruser (“to use cunning, to be crafty, beguile”); see further above.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA