ploy
nounverbattested in dialogue
- //plɔɪ//
A tactic, strategy, or scheme.
noun
- 1
A tactic, strategy, or scheme.
Near-synonyms: ruse, stratagem, device
The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.
'Bide here,' he says, 'and boil the wine till I return. This is a ploy of my own on which no man follows me.' And there was that in his face, as he spoke, which chilled the wildest, and left them well content to keep to the good claret and the saft seat, and let the daft laird go his own ways.
- 2
Sport; frolic.
- 3
obsoleteEmployment.
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.
verb
- 1
To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision.
Troops drawn up so as to show an extended front, with slight depth, are said to be deployed; when the depth is considerable and the front comparatively small, they are said to be in ployed formation.
Etymology
Probably abbreviated from deploy.
Forms
- plural
- ploys
- past tense
- ployed
- past participle
- ployed
- present participle
- ploying
- third person singular
- ploys