ruse

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

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 gallop past; every ruse he tried, but tried in vain.

An action intended to deceive; a trick.

Near-synonyms: ploy, stratagem

It must be borne in mind that huntsmen sometimes make casts which they know must lose them their fox: […] At the same time, it would be bad policy to explain these little matters: some parties, who are not sufficiently acquainted with the management of hounds, might be discontented, whereas by such a ruse no offence is given, as nine-tenths of the Field are not aware that it is not the most likely cast to recover the scent.

Cunning, guile, trickery.

[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.

A French privateer operating under an English commission raided Massacre Island at the mouth of Mobile Bay in 1710, robbing its warehouse of thousands of deerskins and other pelts, as well as of naval stores. They took the small place by ruse.

To deceive or trick using a ruse.

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.

And he [the hart] fleeth then mightily and far from the hounds, that is to say he hath gone a great way from them, then he will go into the stank, and will soil therein once or twice in all the stank and then he will come out again by the same way that he went in, and then he shall ruse again the same way that he came (the length of) a bow shot or more, and then he shall ruse out of the way, for to stall or squatt to rest him, and that he doeth for he knoweth well that the hounds shall come by the fues [footing] into the stank where he was.

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.

A suburb of Sydney in the Campbelltown council area, New South Wales, Australia.

A city in northeastern Bulgaria.

A municipality of Ruse Province, Bulgaria.

A province in Bulgaria.