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noun

stratagem

a maneuver in a game or conversation

In a sentence

Six example sentences with stratagem, each labelled with its topic.

  • Her favorite stratagem is offering an early alliance she never intends to honor, which wins her most tabletop nights.

    Gaming

  • Fouling the weakest free-throw shooter is an old stratagem, ugly to watch but sometimes the only route back.

    Basketball

  • Asking a question you already know the answer to is a cross-examiner's stratagem for testing whether the witness lies.

    Law

  • Her favorite negotiating stratagem is to go silent after naming a price, letting the other side fill the pause with concessions.

    Business

  • Socrates' stratagem of claiming to know nothing lured each partner into offering a definition he could then dismantle.

    Philosophy

  • Interviewers use a simple stratagem, repeating a subject's last three words so the person keeps talking without a question.

    Psychology

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Found in these word lists

Found in 5 published word listsRecognized

Each source is a published word list that contains stratagem. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.