Imposture [noun]

The imposture was discovered, and the poor girl confessed to the wicked trickery which her parents had taught her to practise!

We do not pretend to justify either his ignorance or his imposture; but we cannot condemn his doctrine of one only God.

By dint of imposture, he outwits them; yet, in consequence of his miracles and illusions, he at length discovers himself.

The hero of The Odyssey was, self-confessedly, no tyro, but was himself “in artifice well framed and in imposture various”.

Imagine the indignation of the creditor upon the discovery of the imposture!

I will protect your imposture with the strong arm of the law.

Away unworthy husband, the deed speaks for itself, the imposture is frightful.

Baber speaks of them, and tells how he detected and put a stop to the imposture of a pretended miracle at one of them.

But the imposture was at length exposed by the extremes into which it led many of the red men.

He was the scourge of imposture, the ponderous hammer which smote the brazen idolatry of his age.