Romani → to deceive 2 realizations
ACCEPTED Realization 1
type Polysemy
language English
lexeme Gipsy
meaning 1 gypsy (male and female)
direction →
meaning 2 (obsolete) a person who acts in a disreputable, unscrupulous, or deceptive manner

1616 O, Pharoahs foot, haue I found you? Come, draw, to your tooles: draw, gipsie, or Ile threshyou.
B. Jonson, Every Man in his Humor (revised edition) iiii. vii, in Workes vol. I. 55

1633 This Overture being come to the Queens ear, and withal the knowledge how this Gipsie [sc. Spenser] had marshall'd his cunning practice..she seem'd wondrously well-pleas'd.
Viscount Falkland, Hist. Edward II (1680) 88
reference OED
comment Also a contemptuous term for: a woman, considered as deceitful, thoughtless, orfickle. In later use Scottish and English regional, and sometimes used playfully as aterm of endearment
ACCEPTED Realization 2
type Derivation
language Russian
lexeme 1 цыган (cygan)
lexeme 2 цыганить (cyganit')
meaning 1 a nomadic tribe of indian origin Цыганы шумною толпой по Бессарабии кочуют. (Пушкин)
Gypsies in a noisy crowd roam about in Bessarabia. (Pushkin)
direction —
meaning 2 to deceive
reference
comment Cf. Dal': Цыганить лошадьми, барышничать, менять, покупать и продавать не без плутовства 'to exchange, barter horses; to buy and sell horses with some roguery'.

© Anna A. Zalizniak et al. 2000-2025