ploy

• Rhymes: -ɔɪ

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.

ploy (countable and uncountable, plural ploys)

1. A tactic, strategy, or gimmick.
   • 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:

     Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. […] Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising colossal bonuses to sitting chief executives if they meet ambitious growth targets. That model is still prevalent today.

   The free T-shirt is really a ploy to get you inside to see their sales pitch.

2. (Britain, Scotland, dialectal) Sport; frolic.
3. (obsolete) Employment.

Probably abbreviated from deploy.

ploy (third-person singular simple present ploys, present participle ploying, simple past and past participle ployed)

1. (military) To form a column from a line of troops on some designated subdivision.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wilhelm to this entry?)

• deploy

• -poly, poly, poly-

ploy

1. To flex.
2. To curve.