Word of the Day

: August 6, 2014

chicane

verb shih-KAYN

What It Means

: to use deception : to trick or cheat

chicane in Context

Claiming to be their long-lost grandson, the scammer chicaned the couple into wiring money to him.

"There are two related issues here. One being the commercialization of education and the other being that education is regarded as solely a vehicle for job training. They feed on each other and now we are chicaned into discussing education in purely economic terms." - Dunstan Chan, Sound and Silence, 2013

Did You Know?

There's no mystery about the origins of "chicane." It's from the Middle French verb "chicaner," meaning "to quibble" or "to prevent justice," and print evidence of its use as a verb in English dates to around 1672. The noun form of "chicane" was first used in print in 1686. In addition to referring to "trickery," the noun "chicane" is used to refer to an obstacle or a series of tight turns in opposite directions on a racecourse. In card games, "chicane" refers to the absence of trumps in a hand of cards. One curiosity of this word set is that the word that would appear to be a derivative of "chicane"-"chicanery" (a synonym of "chicane" in its "trickery" sense)-actually appeared in English over 60 years before "chicane."