skullduggery

Sometimes a word just leaps out and grabs your attention:

skullduggery = verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way hanky panky, hocus-pocus, jiggery-pokery, skulduggery, slickness, trickery deception, misrepresentation, deceit - a misleading falsehood

Though we now know pretty well what it means, its origin remains unclear. Experts think that it is probably  an alteration of Scottish sculdudrie (1856)  "adultery" (1713), sculduddery  "bawdry, obscenity" (1821), a euphemism of uncertain origin.  In the eighteenth century, sculduddery meant fornication, adultery, unchastity. In the nineteenth century it seems to have shifted to a sense of obscenity and indecency in language. Later it was respelled and changed again to its current meaning.

But it's used for lots of things.................. book titles, games, upholstery, ironing board covers , oven gloves ent......