The concept is the act of fooling people to believe something which isn't the case. I'm looking for a word that defines the act itself. "To pretend" isn't quite right. "To lie" doesn't work, as you can't say "To lie that [such and such]". Gramatically it should be able to replace "To say".
That describes the concept well, but I guess I'll have to restructure the sentence, since "His greatest accomplishment was to hoodwink that a ghost lived in the forest." isn't working quite right, is it?
only because you left out who's been hoodwinked... most of the words suggested will work in the sentence, but not till you add what's missing:
Thanks for the suggestions so far. Yup, that was my problem with the sentence all along and why I was having a hard time finding a useful word. I wanted to avoid specifying who was the target of the action. Similar to the way "say" works, where a target isn't needed. But perhaps all synonyms for tricking/pretending require a specific target?
"His most successful hoax was the fiction that a ghost lived in the forest." Meh. Not perfect, but I thought I'd post it anyway.
