Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Acting with a secret and often dishonest plan to achieve a personal advantage: Describes a person who habitually makes clever, deceitful plans for their own benefit, typically at the expense of others.
   • Characterized by or involved in making intricate, underhanded plans: Pertaining to behavior that is cunning, manipulative, and focused on long-term, self-serving strategies.

Usage and Examples

• Adjective:
  • He was a scheming politician who cared only for his own power. (He was a politician who made secret, dishonest plans for his own power.)
  • I don't trust her; she has a scheming look in her eyes. (I don't trust her; her expression suggests she is making secret, dishonest plans.)
  • The villain's scheming plot to take over the company was finally exposed. (The villain's intricate, underhanded plan to take over the company was finally revealed.)

Advanced Usage

• "to be scheming": This describes the continuous state or characteristic of a person who is always making such plans.
  • Be careful around him; he's always scheming. (Be careful around him; he is always making secret, dishonest plans.)
• Used attributively (before a noun) to label a person's nature: , .

Variants and Related Words

• Scheme (verb): To make secret and often dishonest plans.
  • He was accused of scheming to defraud the investors.
• Scheme (noun): A secret or underhanded plan; a plot.
  • The elaborate scheme was doomed to fail.
• Schemer (noun): A person who engages in making secret, often dishonest plans.
  • She was known as a ruthless schemer in the business world.

Synonyms

• Calculating: Acting in a cold, planned way to achieve a goal.
• Cunning: Skilled at achieving goals through deceit or evasion.
• Devious: Not straightforward; shifty or deceptive.
• Machiavellian: Cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous in politics or personal advancement.
• Plotting: Secretly making plans to do something, typically illegal or wrong.

Antonyms

• Artless: Without guile or deception.
• Guileless: Devoid of cunning or duplicity.
• Ingenuous: Innocent and unsuspecting.
• Naive: Showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.
• Straightforward: Uncomplicated and direct.

Idioms and Phrases

• "Scheming and plotting": A phrase emphasizing continuous, secretive planning, often for malicious purposes.
  • They spent their days scheming and plotting against their rivals.
• While "scheming" itself is not typically part of a phrasal verb, the related verb "scheme" can be used with prepositions like "against" or "to".
  • He schemed against his colleagues. (He made secret plans to harm his colleagues.)
  • They schemed to overthrow the government. (They made secret plans to overthrow the government.)

Adjective

1. concealing crafty designs for advancing your own interest
   • a selfish and designing nation obsessed with the dark schemes of European intrigue- W.Churchill
   • a scheming wife
   • a scheming gold digger
2. used of persons
   • the most calculating and selfish men in the community