English
ploy
Ploy may come from Middle French ployer ‘to fold’.
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600ployer‘to fold’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1902ploy
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600ployer‘to fold’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1902ploy
Earliest quotation: 1902, John Buchan: “'Bide here,' he says, 'and boil the wine till…”
The story
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.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- ‘to plait, to weave’
complex, fiasco, replication, flax, flack, plexus, flagon, 35 more
through Latin plicō ‘to fold, bend or flex’
apply, display, reply, employment, explicit, exploitation, imply, replica, exploit, implicit, complication, complicate, accomplice, inexplicable, complicity, ply, implicate, supple, pliable, supplication, triplicate, explication, pliant, splay, 23 more
Today it means
noun A tactic, strategy, or scheme.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle French ployer / ploy