chancer
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of chancer
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.
Far from being unique or “a heroic visionary,” Columbus was a typical merchant-seafarer of his time, combining the energies of a Genoese mercantile chancer with the drive of a man who wanted to get rich.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 2, 2026
Flitcroft was front and back page news, with headlines celebrating the plucky chancer who had conned the R&A.
From BBC • Jul. 13, 2022
Even as a young woman my mother had always been a gallus thing: a chancer, gregarious, desirous of any shiny bauble.
From The New Yorker • Jan. 6, 2020
A likable comedy from Loach’s early-90s resurgence, working from a Jim Allen script about an on-his-uppers chancer trying to scrape together enough money for a communion dress for his daughter.
From The Guardian • Oct. 17, 2019
I don’t want the minds of these boys destroyed by that chancer up there on the platform, him handing out apple skins and causing diarrhea right and left.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
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.
