bill of goods - communication (written or spoken) that persuades someone to accept something untrue or undesirable; "they tried to sell me a bill of goods about a secondhand car"

humbug, snake oil - communication (writen or spoken) intended to deceive

false statement, falsehood, untruth, falsity - a false statement

half-truth - a partially true statement intended to deceive or mislead

window dressing, facade - a showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant

overstatement, exaggeration, magnification - making to seem more important than it really is

snow job - a long and elaborate misrepresentation

dissembling, feigning, pretense, pretence - pretending with intention to deceive

subterfuge, blind - something intended to misrepresent the true nature of an activity; "he wasn't sick--it was just a subterfuge"; "the holding company was just a blind"

hanky panky, hocus-pocus, jiggery-pokery, skulduggery, skullduggery, slickness, trickery - verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way

duplicity, fraudulence - a fraudulent or duplicitous representation

equivocation, evasion - a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth

misrepresentaation, falsification - a willful perversion of facts

fakery - the act of faking (or the product of faking)

indirection - deceitful action that is not straightforward; "he could see through the indirections of diplomats"

chicanery, wile, shenanigan, trickery, guile, chicane - the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)

double-dealing, duplicity - acting in bad faith; deception by pretending to entertain one set of intentions while acting under the influence of another

cheating, cheat - a deception for profit to yourself

head game, illusion, delusion - the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas

pretending, pretense, feigning, simulation, pretence - the act of giving a false appearance; "his conformity was only pretending"

imposture, impersonation - pretending to be another person

obscurantism - a deliberate act intended to make something obscure

four flush, bluff - the act of bluffing in poker; deception by a false show of confidence in the strength of your cards

take-in - the act of taking in as by fooling or cheating or swindling someone

performance - the act of presenting a play or a piece of music or other entertainment; "we congratulated him on his performance at the rehearsal"; "an inspired performance of Mozart's C minor concerto"

card trick - a trick performed with playing cards

prestidigitation, sleight of hand - manual dexterity in the execution of tricks