duplicity
noun

- The practice of presenting a false appearance in order to conceal what one is really doing; deceptiveness, deceitfulness, bad faith

- The state or quality of having two parts or forms; the deliberate concealment of one's true intentions by misleading or contradictory actions

- Dishonest talk or behaviour, especially saying different things to different people in order to deceive

Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary, Cambridge English Dictionary

—
WORD ORIGIN

If you have ever described someone as "two-faced," you already understand duplicity — you just haven't used the Latin yet. The word entered English in the fifteenth century via Old French duplicité, from Latin duplicitas, meaning "doubleness." The root is duplex — from duo ("two") + plicare ("to fold"). A duplicitous person is, quite literally, folded in two: one face for the world, another kept hidden in the crease.

That folding root plicare is one of the most productive in English. It gives us complicate (folded together), implicate (folded in), explicit (fully unfolded), perplex (thoroughly tangled), and even diploma — originally a document folded double and bearing an official seal. A diploma and duplicity, then, share the same ancestral crease.

In classical Latin, duplex already carried a moral shadow. Roman writers used it to describe men who promised one thing in public and arranged another in private — a talent, it seems, that has never gone out of fashion.

Helga & Paul Smith

—
SYNONYMS

bad faith, being two-faced, betrayal of trust, calculated deception, chicanery, concealment, cunning, deceit, deceitfulness, deception, deceptiveness, deliberate dishonesty, devious behaviour, dishonesty, dissemblance, dissimulation, DUPLICITY, double-dealing, double-facedness, double-talk, faithlessness, false-heartedness, falseness, falsity, fraud, guile, hypocrisy, insincerity, knavery, living a double life, manipulation, mendacity, perfidy, playing a double game, playing both sides, pretence, prevarication, running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, saying one thing and doing another, scheming, secretiveness, sleight of hand, speaking from both sides of one's mouth, subterfuge, treachery, two-facedness, trickery, ulterior motive, underhandedness, wilful deception, winding the truth

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

"The etymology of DUPLICITY and the words surrounding it are fascinating."

—
KINDLY 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 insightful 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)