dupe

¹ American  

[doop, dyoop] / dup, dyup /

noun

1. a person who is easily deceived or fooled; gull.

2. a person who unquestioningly or unwittingly serves a cause or another person.

   a dupe of the opponents.

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verb (used with object)

duped, duping

1. to make a dupe of; deceive; delude; trick.

dupe ² American  

[doop, dyoop] / dup, dyup /

noun

1. duplicate.

2. Movies.

   1. a duplicate picture negative used for making additional release prints or for making special effects to be inserted in the release negative.

   2. the procedure for producing such a duplicate.

3. Television. a duplicate videotape obtained by electronic printing of the original videotape.

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verb (used with or without object)

duped, duping

1. to duplicate.

adjective

1. duplicate.

dupe British  

/ djuːp /

noun

1. a person who is easily deceived

2. a person who unwittingly serves as the tool of another person or power

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verb

1. (tr) to deceive, esp by trickery; make a dupe or tool of; cheat; fool

Other Word Forms

• dupability noun
• dupable adjective
• duper noun
• dupery noun
• undupable adjective

Etymology

Origin of dupe¹

First recorded in 1675–85; from French; Middle French duppe for unattested tête d'uppe “head of hoopoe,” i.e., “fool” (compare tête de fou ), from unattested Vulgar Latin uppa, Latin upupa “hoopoe,” a bird thought to be especially stupid; cf. hoopoe

Origin of dupe²

First recorded in 1895–90; by shortening

Explanation

A dupe is a furry, ceremonial hat worn during ancient pagan rituals...or not. Dupe actually means “trick or deceive.” We’re sorry we tried to dupe you into believing the wrong definition. Dupe can also refer to the victim of a trick or hoax, and — used in this sense — it sometimes conveys the idea that the victim is easily fooled. Dupe comes from the French word for a type of bird called the hoopoe, which has an extravagant crest and a reputation for being dim-witted. (And no, that's not another attempt to dupe you; it's the truth!)

Example Sentences

Large language models are used to write convincing emails to dupe people out of their money, causing an eight-fold increase in complaints from older Americans as they lost $4.9 billion in online fraud in 2025.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 5, 2026

People should also watch out for scams, with criminals attempting to dupe taxpayers by purporting to be from HMRC.

From BBC • Jan. 30, 2026

"If you're buying a single-ingredient product then you're probably going to be okay in using a dupe or something which is quite low cost because there's very little that can go wrong," she says.

From BBC • Dec. 13, 2025

His KGB contact, who believes him to be a double agent, raises the stakes by asking him for information on Faith—though she has encouraged Gabriel to accept Soviet payments to dupe the Russians.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 12, 2025

The Helena Independent called Rankin “a dagger in the hands of the German propagandists, a dupe of the Kaiser...a crying schoolgirl,” even though a majority of her constituents opposed the war.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

Related Words

• baffle
• bamboozle
• betray
• cheat
• deceive
• defraud
• delude
• hoodwink
• mislead
• swindle
• victimize