Pronunciation IPA (key): /dɪˈsiːv/ Audio (US)(file) Hyphenation: de‧ceive Verb Plain form deceive Third-person singular deceives Past tense deceived Past participle deceived Present participle deceiving When you deceive someone, you make someone believe something that is not true; you mislead them. John was angry that Jane had deceived him. Related words deception deceptiveWikiwand - on Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.