Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Underhand scheming or behavior: "By some legal—or perhaps illegal—jiggery-pokery, he could declare the election void” ( John Hughes).
Wiktionary
- n. Trickery or misrepresentation.
- n. Manipulation
- n. An ambiguous reference to sexual intercourse.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of a person in some way.
WordNet 3.0
- n. verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way
Etymologies
- Alteration of joukery-pawkery : from Scots jouk, to dodge (probably from duck2) + Scots pawk, trick. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Statistical jiggery-pokery from Gallup concluded that a tall, married with children, Asian-American, observant Jew of over 65, living in Hawaii and running his own business with an income of over $120,000 a year would be the most content person alive today.”
The Guardian: This week: Jacques Chirac, Matt Baker, Alvin Wong
“I'm quite good at jiggery-pokery and we had one teacher retire and another land a university job, so here are Kelly and Rachael.”
“The talk was of planning permission, brownfield and greenfield sites and legal jiggery-pokery, but at its heart was the same tricky notion of fairness that beat within Humphrys' programme.”
“I would have Donna burning and some sort of Torchwood headband jiggery-pokery delaying mechanism on her so she can think but grows more incoherant as the episode progresses.”
“And this point is made flesh, really, by John Lanchester, who illuminated all this nefarious financial jiggery-pokery – but Whoops was a side-dish or an amuse-bouche to the main project, Capital, a great monster of a novel, which does more than illuminate finance: it animates it; and that's when you fully comprehend something, when you can see its face.”
The Guardian: No time for novels – should we ditch fiction in times of crisis?
“Odd, come to think, as gypsies are generally associated with all manner of jiggery-pokery.”
“Monsieur Ritz would leave in a cloud of financial jiggery-pokery and scandal in 1897, but nothing would tarnish the triumph of the new Savoy, not least because its provision of a bathroom for every bedroom (an almost other-worldly luxury in late 19th-century London) brought more or less every rich American bent on European travel to its wide and welcoming doors.”
“And I liked seeing the original Avengers used due to some time jiggery-pokery.”
“Don't come to me with your sociological jiggery-pokery; it's all coincidence and barely worthy of remark.”
The Guardian: There's only one class of joke, and that's funny
“Both these worthies returning unexpectedly at this point, the dog at once spotted what it assumed to be jiggery-pokery taking place, and gave tongue in an altogether proper manner.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘jiggery-pokery’.
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This is not a list
you know that thing where the Eskimos have 50 words for snow?
little white lie, big lie, the Big Lie, economical with t..., muddy the waters, fabrication, deception, lies, damned lies..., façade, slander, omission, web of lies and 165 more...
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 161 more...
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Lying, cheating, and stealing
subterfuge, chicanery, skulduggery, pilfer, purloin, bamboozle, bilk, gyp, hoodwink, swindle, hoax, dupe and 28 more...
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Slam Fodder
Those words that will inevitable end up in a Slam Poem
feel free to challenge me!:)bumptious, gamekeeper, slamily, burbuliatorius, cryptomnesia, paradox, pulchritudinous, mimetic, anhedonia, skelf, rampike, furlough and 84 more...
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Folksy Compounds
Those great mashup words that sound like somebody's grampa made them up.
flabbergasted, flibbertigibbet, fussbudget, snickerpuss, chickabiddy, clapperclaw, screaming meemies, snicker-snack, hornswoggle, humdinger, crinkum-crankum, callithump and 11 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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Double Trouble
Reduplicatives and more.
splish-splash, hip-hop, kit-kat, dingaling, hugger-mugger, even-steven, tit for tat, higgledy-piggledy, dilly-dally, boogie-woogie, knick-knack, mai tai and 131 more...
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Favorite Words
quixotic, assonance, palindrome, plebeian, mezzanine, propinquity, etymology, antihero, intrepid, refractions, lawless, sesquipedalian and 237 more...
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elizacole's Words
isomorphic, endemic, tmesis, fillip, antedate, avoirdupois, jeremiad, hypnagogic, antediluvian, fuck, reification, raconteur and 251 more...
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Loaded Dice
Off the straight and narrow; less than straight arrow.
chicanery, sophistry, pilfer, rook, diddle, fleece, grift, poach, rustle, pinch, abscond, steal and 140 more...
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Historical Euphemisms
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Phrases and words I didn't know
give up the ghost, ninja'd, coal-hole, hotting up, chancer, clave, salaryman, turf accountant, cremains, autoclave, hummingbird mind, gank and 177 more...
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The Golem's Eye
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's book, The Golem's Eye.
ordure, widdershins, cop, stipple, ostler, struts, minaret, chemise, remonstrate, concussion, wicket, vamoose and 249 more...
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Useful Words
I can use these.
aptronym, haplology, ectopia, folderol, volute, caryatid, spandrel, pendulous, miasmic, gelid, dotty, anomie and 257 more...
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Misdirector's Cut
Hey...
—> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> —> LOOK OVER THERE! —> —> —>
...sneaky, legerdemain, flimflam, unwittingly, clandestine, hornswoggle, sleveen, subversion, espionage, incognito, subreption, gank and 147 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for jiggery-pokery.

jodi used in this Questionable Content Jul 27, 2011
knitandpurl "'Look here,' he said, 'I'm beginning to think there's been some jiggery-pokery somewhere.'"
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones, p 73 of the 2001 hardcover edition Jul 29, 2010
chained_bear Deceitful or dishonest ‘manipulation’; hocus-pocus, humbug.
Boy. That sure ain't what I thought of when I first saw this word. Feb 2, 2007