scam
Americannoun
-
scams
plural
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Usage
What does scam mean? A scam is a deceptive scheme or trick used to cheat someone out of something, especially money. Scam is also a verb meaning to cheat someone in such a way. Example: Banks will never call you asking for your credit card number or social security number over the phone. If someone calls and asks for information like that, it’s a scam.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of scam
1960–65; originally carnival argot; of obscure origin
Explanation
A scam is a sneaky or dishonest plan that's meant to con someone. A diet scam, for example, falsely claims that people will lose weight if they buy special pills or drinks. A scam is basically a hoax dressed up to look like a real business plan, worthwhile invention, or investment idea. Scams are almost always designed to make money for their creators. You can also use the word as a verb: "His evil plan was to scam people into buying fake tickets to the baseball game." Word experts know that scam came from US carnival slang, but beyond that its origins are a mystery.
Vocabulary lists containing scam
Smoke and Mirrors: The Lingo of Illusion and Deception
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"Imperfect Me"
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Simply Scandalous!
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Steve Keim, a former general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, says he was a victim of an alleged e-commerce scam targeting NFL players.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
An incinerator scheme to help clean up the ecological catastrophe turned out to be a vast multi-million-dollar scam that included a "ghost" incinerator for the capital Tirana that was never built.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
Your relative is in the grip of a scam.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
Just as your altruism or kindness can lead you astray, so can other motivations, like greed — participating in a get-rich-quick scam that seems too good to be true.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 25, 2026
He’d also been convicted of fraud for a scam in which he got an obituary of himself published, then sued the newspaper for libel and damages up to $100 million.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
A Home Office spokesman said the government was taking "robust action" to tackle scams.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Enter The Profiler, a self-proclaimed crime fighter who has made it his mission to root out online scams and fake job ads.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
AI chatbots have made large-scale cheating among students -- what some educators call "homework scams" -- easier than ever, allowing them to generate credible solutions to almost any written assignment within seconds.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
But if you are hunting round for grants, watch out for scams pretending to be official money-off schemes.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
Once in a while I’d leak stuff about phishing scams.
From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin
In total, $4.6 billion in student debt is falsely showing up on credit reports, according to the Project on Predatory Student Lending, a nonprofit that represents borrowers who were scammed by their schools in court.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
The trailer then cuts to Fielder grilling Evans about whether he was afraid of being scammed, considering that he comes from a rich family.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
Johna backed out of the chat, realizing that she’d only just escaped being scammed.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
Another local company paid £400 to the scammers and bought stock to sell at the festival before they realised they had been scammed.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
We hadn’t scammed Robbie, but we’d worked him in a way that felt downright sleazy, and I’d ended up in a tight spot.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
He attended church services organized by Nigerians serving time for online scamming.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
Here’s the common sense: This isn’t a problem of scamming students or lazy teachers, though of course both exist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Dozens of dogs kept in sham animal shelters and used for online scamming have been rescued by police and animal rights organisations in Uganda following a BBC investigation.
From BBC ● May 13, 2026
Begging, scamming and threatening: they’re all tools of the writer’s trade in Pamela Hansford Johnson’s dark comedy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
“They were scamming you. Girls scam guys all the time with that. Kerri was listening in on the extension.”
From "Tangerine" by Edward Bloor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
