dishonesty
Americannoun
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dishonesties
plural
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lack of honesty; a disposition to lie, cheat, or steal.
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a dishonest act; fraud.
noun
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lack of honesty or fairness; deceit
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a deceiving act or statement; fraud
Usage
What does dishonesty mean? Dishonesty is the opposite of honesty—it’s the act or practice of being intentionally deceptive or not fully truthful in some way. When a person is accused of dishonesty, it usually means they are frequently or habitually untruthful—that they tend to lie often or that they often hide or leave out part of the truth. Dishonesty involves being intentionally deceptive—deceiving people or misleading them through lies, the omission of all or parts of the truth, or the twisting of the truth. The adjective dishonest is used to describe someone or something as intentionally deceptive or not fully truthful in some way. Example: The level of your dishonesty is astounding—I can’t believe a word you say.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dishonesty
First recorded in 1350–1400, dishonesty is from the Middle English word deshonestee. See dis- 1, honesty
Explanation
Acting in a way that's deceitful or false is dishonesty. If your best friend claims she'll be studying all weekend, but she's actually planning to go out with other pals, that's dishonesty. The word dishonesty implies that someone's lying, but it also encompasses cheating or being deceptive. When a magician claims to have special powers but secretly hides cards up their sleeve, you might think of it as dishonesty — although the magician might call it "illusion" or "sleight of hand."
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:
But somewhere between the “you go, girl” and #MeToo eras emerged a dishonesty around how we discuss women’s bodies.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2026
Miller has been racking up a series of unsettling on-camera appearances in which his attempts at defending himself instead reveal a deep well of dishonesty.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2026
Oscar Barragan, who oversaw the agency’s special enforcement bureau, be discharged for violating the department’s policies on dishonesty and obstructing an investigation, according to an internal July 14 memo reviewed by The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
Meanwhile, a court-appointed monitor for the union has accused Fain of dishonesty and underhanded management tactics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
“You always said that dishonesty was punished eventually, so I didn’t want to keep it.”
From "Ophie's Ghosts" by Justina Ireland
“When … caught in obvious and repeated lies and dishonesties, many will affect an air of total innocence, claiming without a trace of shame that they have been unfairly accused.”
From Slate ● Aug. 30, 2018
One father of a boy with autism, the film director Todd Drezner, has written an open letter to the film’s distributors that itemises Vaxxed’s dishonesties – and dismisses their own absurd claims, post-Tribeca, of censorship.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 16, 2016
He vacillates between grandiose justifications for his dishonesties and mea culpa self-flagellation: “Nothing like the silken whip of self-reproach to soothe a smarting conscience,” he observes.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 10, 2015
But as a window into the compromises and dishonesties with which Germans have had to live for two generations, the book packs a punch.
From Time Magazine Archive
His undoubted gifts as an anatomist allowed him to get away with the most barefaced dishonesties.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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.
