hoodwinkery

English

Etymology

hoodwink (“to deceive using a disguise; to bewile, dupe, mislead”) +‎ -ery

Noun

hoodwinkery (countable and uncountable, plural hoodwinkeries) (informal)

1. (uncountable) The process or act of hoodwinking; deception, trickery.
   • 1958, George Freedley, The Lunts, Macmillan, page 77:

     This actress is a brilliant comedienne, a mistress of the art of insinuation, extremely skilled in the hoodwinkery of gestures of which Duse was the greatest exponent.

   • 1973, Bob Bartlett, quotee, Legal Compilation; Statutes and Legislative History, Executive Orders, Regulations, Guidelines and Reports, volume 2, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, page 1057:

     I do not level a blanket accusation of hoodwinkery and deception. I only say that there have been such cases of this in the past, and I am pleased to say that the chances of such cases happening in the future would be considerably reduced by passage of the proposed legislation and by section 212 of the bill in particular.

   • 1979, Fanny Howe, Holy Smoke, University of Alabama Press, →ISBN, page 17:

     For there is no greater loss than the loss of a child—to the world's hoodwinkery. To the arms of the galaxies. To being shadowed by the hood of Nothingness.

   • 2009 August 24, Scott Brown, “Wired's Guide to Hoaxes: How to Give — and Take — a Joke”, in Wired‎^[1]:

     The source of hoodwinkery has shifted from the all-powerful (ad agencies, governments, MTV) to the tweeting masses—and lo, charlatanism is democratized.

   • 2019 June 12, Stephanie Zacharek, “Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan Film Rolling Thunder Revue Is One of the Most Truthful Movies You'll See in 2019”, in Time‎^[2]:

     Why would Dylan tell such an outlandish lie? Why would he not? That's barely the beginning of Scorsese and Dylan's hoodwinkery: The two are like mischievous twins, playing jokes on mom. It's unusual to see Scorsese, as a filmmaker, cut up this way, and it's wonderful.

   • 2022 March 19, Joel Golby, “Love in the Flesh: it's Love Island-lite – but have they swapped nudes beforehand?”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     Post-Love Island, we have the weaponised horniness of Too Hot to Handle, the hoodwinkery of Ready to Mingle, we have a landscape where Love Is Blind is allowed to happen, and I would even argue that the ancient format of Married at First Sight had a Love Island-adjacent uplift.

2. (countable, rare) An instance of hoodwinking; a deception or trick.
   • 1940, Jean Hugard, Frederick Braué, Expert Card Technique, Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 435:

     When a conjurer truly enjoys his work, when he radiates that uncounterfeitable pleasure he derives from doing his mysterious hoodwinkeries, no audience in the world can resist him.

   • 1946, Montague Summers, Witchcraft and Black Magic, Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 112:

     He had found the time to dip into a good many books, and proved an adept in the art of persuading people that he had plumbed the depths of his subject, whereas he had barely skimmed the surface, a hoodwinkery which for success requires a certain native coolness and poker-face skill.

   • 2021 April 1, Michael Harriot, “If You're Black, Every Day Is April Fools”, in The Root‎^[4]:

     I actually guffawed when I heard that the guy from The Apprentice was running for president. I thought the 2016 election was one of the most hilarious hoodwinkeries of all time.