dark designs
noun

- hidden or sinister plans, especially those intended to harm, deceive, or manipulate others without their knowledge; schemes of a wicked or underhanded nature.

- to have dark designs on someone or something — to secretly intend harm, to harbour malicious intentions, or to plot against someone's interests while maintaining an outward appearance of innocence.

- a set of underhanded tactics or secretly plotted schemes, often deployed gradually so that the victim does not realise what is happening until it is too late.

Merriam-Webster, The Free Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary

—
WORD ORIGIN

The word design carries a double life that most people never notice.

It comes from the Latin designare — meaning "to mark out" or "to point to" — built from de- ("out") and signare ("to mark"), the same root that gives us sign and signal. In its earliest English use, from the late 14th century, a design was simply a mark or outline — a sketch on paper.

But the Italian verb disegnare had already taken a darker turn. By the 16th century, it had developed the sense of "to contrive" or "to plot," and French picked up both meanings — dessin for a drawing or pattern, dessein for a purpose or intention, especially a harmful one. English, typically, absorbed both and kept the same spelling for everything.

By 1704, dictionaries were recording "design" specifically in the sense of "an intention to act, mainly used to mean to do something harmful or illegal." The adjective designing — meaning scheming or artfully manipulative — follows directly from this, recorded from the 1670s.

Add dark — long used in English to signal what is hidden, wicked, or morally corrupt — and the compound dark designs becomes a natural and powerful phrase. It appears in Milton, in 18th-century political pamphlets, and has found new life in the 21st century as a term for the deliberately deceptive tricks built into websites and apps.

The word that began as a simple pencil mark ended up meaning one of the most calculated forms of human treachery.

Helga & Paul Smith

—
SYNONYMS

artifice, backroom plotting, backstabbing, behind-the-scenes scheming, chicanery, clandestine plans, collusion, connivance, conspiracy, covert agenda, cunning plan, cut-throat tactics, DARK DESIGNS, deceit, deception, deep game, devious schemes, dirty trick (work), double cross, double-dealing, duplicity, evil intentions, false flag, fiddle, fix, flimflam, foul play, frame-up, hidden agenda, hoodwinking, intrigue, jiggery-pokery, low blow (cunning), machinations, malicious schemes, manipulation, monkey business, moves behind the scenes, nefarious schemes, perfidy, plot, plotting and scheming, ploy, put-up job, racket, ruse, scheme, secret machinations, set-up, shady dealings, shenanigans, sinister plans, skulduggery, sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors, snake in the grass, snare, stab in the back, sting, stratagem, subterfuge, trap, treachery, treacherous plans, trickery, trickster's game, two-faced dealing, ulterior motive, underhand dealing (manoeuvres), underhand plans (tactics, play), villainous plots, web of deceit, wicked plots, wiles, wrong move

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Take care when signing up for new internet services — their cancellation conditions can often have some pretty DARK DESIGNS built into them.”

—
PLEASE SUPPORT US

On evenings and weekends, I research and write your daily OWAD newsletter together with Helga (my lovely wife and business partner) and our eagle-eyed daughter Jennifer. It remains FREE, AD-FREE, and ALIVE thanks to voluntary donations from appreciative readers.

If you aren’t already, please consider supporting us — even a small donation, equivalent to just 1-cup-of-coffee a month, would help us in covering expenses for mailing, site-hosting, maintenance, and service.

Just head over to DonorBox:
https://donorbox.org/owad-q4-2023-5

or

Bank transfer:
Paul Smith
IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40

Important: please state as ’Verwendungszweck’: “OWAD donation” and the email address used to subscribe to OWAD.

Thanks so much,

Paul
(OWAD Founder)