All these words involve the intention to deceive. Trick is the most general, and may apply to any device used to fool someone, whether in earnest or in fun: a mean trick to obtain money; prankish schoolboys’ tricks .

Artifice has a general meaning of artistic skill or even the created work itself. One of its meanings relates it to this set of words describing expedients used to gain an end. In this sense artifice means something contrived especially to win out in a given situation. It has connotations of cleverness and may or may not suggest an unethical approach.

• The labyrinth was an artifice created by Daedalus to imprison the violent Minotaur; Pretending to be a sightseer was a harmless artifice if it permitted him to speak to the beautiful woman in the park.

In blind and subterfuge the element of an unethical deception or disguise is stronger. A blind usually involves out-and-out role-playing, whereas a subterfuge can be a momentary deception which invites the onlooker to mistake a person’s real intentions.

• His job as a barman was simply a blind for conducting an illicit starting-price betting business; Her sudden illness was a subterfuge to prevent her son from leaving home.

Both wile and ruse imply cunning pretences in order to persuade, but ruse may be more innocuous than wile , which suggests taking unfair advantage.

• The ruse of having a prior appointment permitted her to escape from the aggressive bore; All his wiles could not persuade her to entrust him with her money.

Dodge and evasion are much more harmless in tone, implying the avoidance of a confrontation rather than the active initiation of a false situation.

• The actress quickly changed the subject – a skilful dodge to avoid admitting her actual age; She had built her career on a succession of such evasions .

Stratagem and manoeuvre are drawn from military parlance to describe carefully plotted offensive or defensive tactics. Both imply conscious, calculated planning.

• His stratagem for winning her approval was to agree with everything she said; Announcing his candidacy was only a manoeuvre to prevent his rival from gaining the nomination.

These words all mean to use secret or underhanded devices to make someone believe something that is not true or to accept as real or worthwhile something that is false or valueless. Trick suggests the accomplishment of such a purpose by means of a plot, manoeuvre, artifice, wile, etc.: to trick a fugitive into believing that he had eluded his pursuers. To deceive is to trick by the distortion of truth or reality: a bookkeeper who deceived his employer by manipulating the accounts of the business.

To delude or mislead is to lead into error, as by a series of deceptive or alluring utterances or demonstrations. Both words suggest evasion or avoidance of the real facts of a matter rather than deliberate misrepresentation: propaganda designed to delude the public about the true extent of civilian casualties during a month of heavy bombing; unethical music teachers who mislead untalented, gullible students into thinking they can become successful musicians.

To dupe or hoax is to take advantage of a victim’s naïveté or credulousness in deceiving him about the reality, truth or value of something. Both words can involve serious or humorous deception but dupe seems to be more personal and more likely to be permanent in effect, whereas after a hoax is discovered there need be no lasting damage: The television play hoaxed viewers into believing an invasion was imminent; country bumpkins being duped by city confidence men. Hoodwink means to befuddle the mind to the point at which truth and falseness are indistinguishable: a barrister trying to hoodwink a jury by confusing the issues.