Chicanery means using trickery or deception to achieve a goal, especially using verbal trickery or legalese in a deceptive manner to achieve a goal. The word chicanery was borrowed from the French in the 1600s, from the French word chicanerie which means trickery and the Middle French word chicaner which means to quibble. Obviously, chicanery carries a negative and underhanded connotation. Chicanery is a noun, the plural form of chicanery is chicaneries. According to Google’s Ngram, the popularity of the word peaked in the middle-1700s.
Examples
You’ve been warning that the party establishment will try to use this kind of chicanery to maneuver the nomination away from Trump — all of it happening before the first ballot. (Rolling Stone Magazine)
The higher-ups are the ones who need a spine, tightening regulations and oversight to discourage and eliminate this wanton academic chicanery. (The New York Post)
“If greed and avarice and chicanery are New York values, then yes,” Trump is a New Yorker, said Pete McParland, who works in maintenance at the College of Staten Island. (TIME Magazine)
And Mr. Trump began jeering primary rival Ted Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted,” targeting the Texas senator’s appeal to honesty and principled conservatism, after the Cruz camp was accused of campaign chicanery. (The Washington Times)
The most famous chicanery of them all at MIA, though, was over a decade ago when more than 20 people were arrested in the notorious “Fuel Farm” scandal, a series of schemes that included the theft of millions of gallons of jet fuel. (The Miami Herald)
That power grab sparked years of rival street protests and political chicanery by the Bangkok establishment. (The West Australian)
Another sub species of Islamofascists, PAS, has been playing this game for decades on the northern and east coast Malay-Muslims, using religious chicanery to make up the lack of good governance. (The Malay Mail)