ploy
/plɔɪ/ noun, verb
Forms ploys ploying ployed
- noun A tactic, strategy, or scheme. “The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.”
- noun (UK, Scotland, dialect) Sport; frolic.
- noun (obsolete) Employment.
- verb (military) To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
Possibly from a shortened form of employ or deploy. Or from earlier ploye, from Middle English, borrowed from Middle French ployer (compare modern plier), from Latin plicāre.
Probably abbreviated from deploy.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Sport; frolic. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.]
- verb To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision; --the opposite of deploy. Wilhelm.
Etymology [Prob. abbrev. fr. deploy.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “ploy”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details