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SCHEMING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Concealing crafty designs for advancing your own interest
Example:
a scheming gold digger
Synonyms:
designing; scheming
Classified under:
Similar:
artful (marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Acting with a specific goal
Example:
the most calculating and selfish men in the community
Synonyms:
calculating; calculative; conniving; scheming; shrewd
Classified under:
Similar:
hard (dispassionate)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb scheme
Context examples:
It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
They were, in fact, a necessitous family; numerous, too, almost beyond example; by no means respected in their own neighbourhood, as he had lately had particular opportunities of discovering; aiming at a style of life which their fortune could not warrant; seeking to better themselves by wealthy connections; a forward, bragging, scheming race.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Colonel Wallis declined sitting down again, and Mr Elliot was invited by Elizabeth and Miss Carteret, in a manner not to be refused, to sit between them; and by some other removals, and a little scheming of her own, Anne was enabled to place herself much nearer the end of the bench than she had been before, much more within reach of a passer-by.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Thus, the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood motives, by accident of fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents, by crafty guardians, by scheming relatives, and so forth and so forth; they could be reunited by a brave deed of the man lover, by a similar deed of the woman lover, by change of heart in one lover or the other, by forced confession of crafty guardian, scheming relative, or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by discovery of some unguessed secret, by lover storming girl's heart, by lover making long and noble self-sacrifice, and so on, endlessly.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
