From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdecoyde‧coy /ˈdiːkɔɪ/ noun [countable] 1 TRICK/DECEIVEsomeone or something that is used to trick someone into going somewhere or doing something, so that you can catch them, attack them etc Officer Langley acted as a decoy to catch the rapist.2 DSOa model of a bird used to attract wild birds so that you can watch them or shoot them —decoy /dɪˈkɔɪ/ verb [transitive]
Examples from the Corpus
decoy• You act as a decoy and we'll sneak out the back.• Officer Jane Langlois acted as a decoy to catch the rapist.• The burglars started the fire as a decoy so that they could escape from police.• On the drive down, he had given some thought to using her as a decoy.• They use them as a decoy for surface to air missiles and they will do that during training.• It was an irresistible lure, like the quack of a decoy duck.• He knew it was a decoy, but could find no other.• It was a decoy to hide the fact that they were also killing members of the political opposition.• Two will be described here: pillow mounds and former rabbit warrens, and decoys for taking wildfowl.• During those tests kill vehicles would have to find their targets among an array of decoys and countermeasures.• Elmer and Mr Nordberg haul in the decoys and Bob and Cully climb out.Origin decoy (1500-1600) Dutch de cooi “the cage” (= structure of bars for keeping animals in) 