skulduggery
English · Thesaurus
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
skulduggery
- /skʌlˈdʌɡəɹi/ UK
- /skʌlˈdʌɡɹi/ UK
- /ˌskʌlˈdʌɡəɹi/ US
- /ˌskʌlˈdʌɡɹi/ US
- /ˌskəlˈdəɡ-/ US
Where it comes from
An alteration of Scots sculduddery, sculdudrie (“adultery, unchaste behaviour; obscenity, lewdness”), of long-uncertain origin (probably a euphemism). Relation to skull is speculative at best and likely folk etymology. The American spelling skullduggery is in keeping with terms such as skillful and willful.
noun skulduggeries · sculduggery · scullduggery · skullduggery
-
A devious device or trick.
A private company cannot get away with a skulduggery of that sort. Once it has paid out its money for taxes, it cannot reach into the public treasury and get it back and apply it on its amortization account.
Similar: ruse, stratagem, subterfuge
-
Dishonest, underhanded, or unscrupulous activities or behaviour.
And I have another reason which I will express to my St Paul friends, and that is, that they have always been controlled in their political action here by a class of men who have always some traps set for the country members—by men who are always up to this border ruffian kind of trickery—this kind
Similar: dishonesty, jiggery-pokery, subterfuge, thugduggery, trickery, underhandedness, unscrupulousness · Opposite: honesty, probity
Translations
Every language
noun devious device or trick
| Português | trapaça |
|---|---|
| Français | entourloupe |
| Deutsch | Mauschelei, Hinterlist |
| Română | păcăleală, înșelătorie, escrocherie |
| Русский | надува́тельство naduvátelʹstvo, моше́нничество mošénničestvo, жу́льничество žúlʹničestvo |
Talk about this word "skulduggery." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/skulduggery. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. skulduggery. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/skulduggery "skulduggery." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/skulduggery.Cite this
@misc{skulduggery_2026,
title = {skulduggery},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/skulduggery},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
