Ponzi scheme
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of Ponzi scheme
After Charles Ponzi , who famously perpetrated such a scheme in the United States of America in the early 20th century
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.
However, Bernie Madoff was a fiduciary, and he violated the trust of his clients in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 30, 2026
Last September, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Lopez and his partners, accusing them of running a Ponzi scheme, misleading investors and misappropriating $16.1 million.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
In November, Trump pardoned David Gentile 12 days into a seven-year sentence after conviction for a private-equity Ponzi scheme External link that cost more than 17,000 people a total of $1 billion.
From Barron's ● Jan. 20, 2026
But Epstein apparently tried to convince officials to shorten his Florida confinement claiming he was cooperating on the federal prosecution of Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme rocked Palm Beach.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
They had the essential feature of a Ponzi scheme: To maintain the fiction that they were profitable enterprises, they needed more and more capital to create more and more subprime loans.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
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.
