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/dəkˈɔɪ/ Listen

noun

Decoy n.

Anything intended to lead into a snare; a lure that deceives and misleads into danger, or into the power of an enemy; a bait.

A fowl, or the likeness of one, used by sportsmen to entice other fowl into a net or within shot.

A place into which wild fowl, esp. ducks, are enticed in order to take or shoot them.

A person employed by officers of justice, or parties exposed to injury, to induce a suspected person to commit an offense under circumstances that will lead to his detection.

verb

Decoy v. t. (past & past part. decoyed; pres. part. decoying) To lead into danger by artifice; to lure into a net or snare; to entrap; to insnare; to allure; to entice; as, to decoy troops into an ambush; to decoy ducks into a net. "Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy." "E'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy."

Synonyms: To entice; tempt; allure; lure. See Allure.

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Etymology of 'Decoy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Decoy" Quotes from Famous Books

... hour after the extinction of his pyre. Nor will there be more remains of any of us. And the whole of Humanity, and the Earth itself, will also disappear one day. Let no one talk of the Progress of Humanity as an end! That would be too gross a decoy. ...

— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others, not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them ...

— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... there is a sorry fellow in the world, who has presumed to question, whether the prize, when obtained, is worthy of the pains it costs me: yet knows, with what patience and trouble a bird-man will spread an acre of ground with gins and snares; set up his stalking horse, his glasses; plant his decoy- birds, and invite the feathered throng by his whistle; and all his prize at last (the reward of early hours, and of a whole morning's pains) ...

— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... ignorant unsuspicious inlanders by alluring and entangling them in the treacherous meshes of debt, and then, by capturing and mercilessly selling their human game, liquidate the debt, insinuatingly advanced as an irresistible decoy to allure their ...

— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... that he was reminded of it, was not this, perhaps, but a device of the enemy's to decoy him from the comparative safety of ...

— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

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