knavery

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The antics or tricks of a knave; boyish mischief.

   “[…] Harry Monmouth, being in his right wittes and his good iudgements, turn'd away the fat Knight with the great belly doublet: he was full of ieſts, and gypes, and knaueries, and mockes; I haue forgot his name.”

   “The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with impunity; he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins; yet, like all mad-cap youngsters, he was a universal favourite among the women.”

2. (countable, uncountable)An unprincipled action; deceit.

   “Caſsio’s a proper man, let me ſee now, / To get his place and to make vp my will, / A double knauery—how, how,—let me see, […]”

   “[A]s our little Traffick with the Natives was hitherto upon the Faith of their firſt Kindneſs, we found ſome Knavery among them at laſt; for having bought ſome Cattel of them for our Toys, […] one of our Men differing with his Chapman, truly they huff’d him in their Manner, and keeping the things he had offered them for the Cattel, made their Fellows drive away the Cattel before his Face, and laugh at him; […]”

   “He conſider'd juſtly, that it was not requiſite, in order to reject a Fact of this Nature, to be able accurately to diſprove the Teſtimony, and to trace its Falſhood, thro' all the Circumſtances of Knavery and Credulity, which produc'd it.”

   “O, Hang 'em—no—wine does but draw forth a man's natural qualities; and to make them drink would only be to whet their Knavery.”

   “How much is conveyed in those two short words—"The Parish!" And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune, and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated!”