Other forms: subterfuges
A subterfuge is a trick used to avoid a difficulty or to hide something. Resort to subterfuge, without subterfuge, an elaborate subterfuge.
It is quieter than a lie and cleverer than an evasion, and it works by arrangement rather than by statement. The Latin means to escape by slipping underneath, which is exactly the manoeuvre.
1nounsubterfugeA trick used to avoid a difficulty or to hide something.
“She used a clever subterfuge to get backstage: she pretended to be a journalist.”
subterfuge is a trick.
Latin subterfugium comes from subterfugere, to escape secretly, from subter, underneath, plus fugere, to flee.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰewg-
Latin
subterfugiō — to flee secretly
Medieval Latin
subterfugium
Middle French
subterfuge
English, today
subterfuge
Built from
Borrowed from Middle French subterfuge, from Medieval Latin subterfugium, from Latin subterfugiō (“to flee secretly”), from subter (“under”) and fugiō (“to flee”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA