decoy

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A living or artificial bird or other animal used to entice game into a trap or within shooting range.
• noun An enclosed place, such as a pond, into which wildfowl are lured for capture.
• noun A means used to mislead or lead someone into danger.
• transitive verb To lure (an animal) into a trap or position to be hunted.
• transitive verb To entice or mislead by deception or into danger. synonym: lure.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A pond used to snare and entrap, and also to maintain and breed, waterfowl.
• To lure into a snare; entrap by some allurement or deception: as, to decoy ducks within gunshot; troops may be decoyed into an ambush.
• To allure, attract, or entice, without notion of entrapping.
• Synonyms Allure, Lure, Entice(see allure); to snare, insnare, mislead.
• To be deceived by a decoy; fall into a snare.
• noun A lure employed to entice game into a snare or within the range of a weapon; specifically, an image of a bird, as a duck, or a trained living bird or animal, used to lure wild birds or animals into the power of man; hence, also, a person similarly employed with respect to other persons.
• noun Anything intended to lead into a snare; any lure or allurement that deceives and misleads into evil, danger, or the power of an enemy; a stratagem employed to mislead or lead into danger.
• noun A place, as a pond, furnished with an arrangement for luring wild fowl into it.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To lead into danger by artifice; to lure into a net or snare; to entrap; to insnare; to allure; to entice
• noun Anything intended to lead into a snare; a lure that deceives and misleads into danger, or into the power of an enemy; a bait.
• noun A fowl, or the likeness of one, used by sportsmen to entice other fowl into a net or within shot.
• noun A place into which wild fowl, esp. ducks, are enticed in order to take or shoot them.
• noun A person employed by officers of justice, or parties exposed to injury, to induce a suspected person to commit an offense under circumstances that will lead to his detection.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A person or object meant to lure something to danger.
• noun A real or fake animal used by hunters to lure game.
• verb To act or use a decoy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a beguiler who leads someone into danger (usually as part of a plot)
• noun something used to lure fish or other animals into danger so they can be trapped or killed
• verb lure or entrap with or as if with a decoy