noun deception, trickery. Rhyming slang for HANKY PANKY, formed on US evangelists Dwight Lyman Moody and Ira D. Sankey, jointly known (and vilified) as Moody and Sankey, who brought their message to the UK in the mid-1870s. This term may well have evolved separately or be bound up with MOODY; OLD MOODY (lies, deception) UK, 1961