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The Double Nature of Duplicity and Duplicitous
The idea of doubleness is at the core of duplicity and duplicitous. Duplicity is the older of the pair; it comes from a Latin word meaning "double" or "twofold," and its original meaning in English has to do with a kind of deception in which you intentionally hide your true feelings or intentions behind false words or actions. If you are being duplicitous there are two yous: the one you're showing and the one you're hiding. And—key to the idea of duplicity—you're hiding the hidden you in order to make people believe something that's not true.
The word is found in many works of literature, including the Bible:
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.
— Proverbs 11:3 (New International Version)Even when he sat opposite me in the kitchen, talking, he would turn his head a little toward the clock or the stove and look at me from the side, but with frankness and good nature. This trick did not suggest duplicity or secretiveness ...
— Willa Cather, My Antonia, 1918Arch read it at breakfast the day it came out and again that night. He admired its art but was most affected, and in fact discomfited, by its unblinking inventory of self-seeking and duplicity.
— Tobias Wolff, Old School, 2003
Examples of duplicitous in a Sentence
David D. Kirkpatrick, New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2025
Take Stallone’s troubled Vietnam vet, Rambo, who hates prejudiced cops, duplicitous CIA agents and sadistic Soviet lieutenant colonels (not in that order).
—John Devore, Rolling Stone, 31 Mar. 2025
Othello star Jake Gyllenhaal’s backstage home-away-from-home in Broadway’s Barrymore theater is an extension of the Shakespearean world he’s been steeped in while developing his version of Iago, the duplicitous ensign to the titular Venetian army general played by Denzel Washington.
—Charlotte Collins, Architectural Digest, 24 Mar. 2025
Meanwhile, the characters attempt to wax philosophical about people’s duplicitous natures, all but turning to the camera and speaking the movie’s title.
—Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 20 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for duplicitous
Cite this Entry
“Duplicitous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duplicitous. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.
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duplicitous
adjective
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