ploy

See also: pløy

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔɪ

Etymology 1

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.

Noun

ploy (countable and uncountable, plural ploys)

1. A tactic, strategy, or gimmick.
   • 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:

     Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. […] Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising colossal bonuses to sitting chief executives if they meet ambitious growth targets. That model is still prevalent today.

   The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.

2. (UK, Scotland, dialect) Sport; frolic.
3. (obsolete) Employment.

Translations

strategy, tactic

• Dutch: kunstgreep (nl), strategie (nl), tactiek (nl)
• French: truc (fr) m, stratégie (fr) f, tactique (fr) f
• German: Trick (de) m, List (de) f, Masche (de) f
• Maori: nuka, rauhanga, tiriki (From English “trick”), nuka, rauhanga
• Polish: chwyt (pl) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: estratagema (pt) m
• Russian: уло́вка (ru) f (ulóvka)
• Spanish: táctica (es) f, estrategia (es) f, truco (es) m
• Swedish: trick (sv) n, knep (sv) n

Etymology 2

Probably abbreviated from deploy.

Verb

ploy (third-person singular simple present ploys, present participle ploying, simple past and past participle ployed)

1. (military) To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wilhelm to this entry?)

Antonyms

• deploy

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “ploy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• -poly, poly, poly-

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Sranan Tongo

Verb

ploy

1. To flex.
2. To curve.