ruse

A turning or doubling back, especially of animals to get out of the way of hunting dogs.archaiccountableoften

• The boar was evidently most averse to leave the field in which he had spent so may pleasant hours of uninterrupted rest; […] He turned sharply to one flank; he stopped dead, and went away in the opposite direction as he heard the hunters ga

An action intended to deceive; a trick.broadlycountable

• Near-synonyms: ploy, stratagem, artifice

Cunning, guile, trickery.uncountable

• [H]e [Bertrand du Guesclin] had great natural cunning, that half-savage quality, was full of ruse and trick in war, he was contemptuous towards the high noblesse, but gentle to the poor, and generous to his friends.

To deceive or trick using a ruse.intransitive

• Anyway, no man can escape the woman he considers too much rused for him: tear her down or run away toward her if he can't meet her head-and-hind on.
• And, in a way, s/he is already told, and what s/he him/herself is telling will not undo the fact that somewhere else s/he is told, but it will "ruse" with this; it will offer a variant in the form and even in the story.

Of an animal: to turn or double back to elude hunters or their hunting dogs.archaicintransitiverare

• With these whelps [the hunting dogs] who know the way but are in danger of being baffled by the rusing stag, the hunter sends the reliable old harre (perseverance). He is indispensable, as he has often confronted the stag at bay.