cheat
Americanverb (used with object)
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cheats,
present (3rd person singular)
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cheated,
past participle, past
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cheating
present participle
verb (used without object)
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cheats,
present (3rd person singular)
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cheated,
past participle, past
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cheating
present participle
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to practice fraud or deceit.
She cheats without regrets.
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to violate rules or regulations.
He cheats at cards.
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to take an examination or test in a dishonest way, as by improper access to answers.
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Informal. to be sexually unfaithful (often followed byon ).
Her husband knew she had been cheating all along. He cheated on his wife.
noun
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cheats
plural
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a person who acts dishonestly, deceives, or defrauds.
He is a cheat and a liar.
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a fraud; swindle; deception.
The game was a cheat.
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Law. the fraudulent obtaining of another's property by a pretense or trick.
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an impostor.
The man who passed as an earl was a cheat.
verb
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to deceive or practise deceit, esp for one's own gain; trick or swindle (someone)
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(intr) to obtain unfair advantage by trickery, as in a game of cards
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(tr) to escape or avoid (something unpleasant) by luck or cunning
to cheat death
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informal to be sexually unfaithful to (one's wife, husband, or lover)
noun
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a person who cheats
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a deliberately dishonest transaction, esp for gain; fraud
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informal sham
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law the obtaining of another's property by fraudulent means
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the usual US name for rye-brome
Synonym Usage
Cheat, deceive, trick, victimize refer to the use of fraud or artifice deliberately to hoodwink or obtain an unfair advantage over someone. Cheat implies conducting matters fraudulently, especially for profit to oneself: to cheat at cards. Deceive suggests deliberately misleading or deluding, to produce misunderstanding or to prevent someone from knowing the truth: to deceive one's parents. To trick is to deceive by a stratagem, often of a petty, crafty, or dishonorable kind: to trick someone into signing a note. To victimize is to make a victim of; the emotional connotation makes the cheating, deception, or trickery seem particularly dastardly: to victimize a blind man.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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cheaternoun
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outcheatverb (used with object)
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cheatableadjective
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uncheatedadjective
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uncheatingadjective
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cheatinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cheatsimple
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cheatssimple
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have cheatedperfect
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has cheatedperfect
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am cheatingprogressive
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are cheatingprogressive
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is cheatingprogressive
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have been cheatingperfect progressive
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has been cheatingperfect progressive
Past
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cheatedsimple
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had cheatedperfect
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was cheatingprogressive
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were cheatingprogressive
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had been cheatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cheat
1325–75; Middle English chet (noun) (aphetic for achet, variant of eschet escheat ); cheten to escheat, derivative of chet (noun)
Explanation
To cheat is to use sneaky, unfair methods to get something you want. No one's going to want to play with you if you always cheat at mini golf. Some people cheat at cards, and others cheat during math tests by copying from the student beside them. In either case, they're trying to succeed using underhanded tricks. You can refer to someone who does this as a cheat as well. Cheat comes from the Old French escheat, a legal term for the state taking someone's property when he or she dies without heirs. This practice was resented, and it came to mean "confiscate unfairly."
Vocabulary lists containing cheat
Words for the World Series
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"The Three Chicarrones"
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Unit 18, Lesson 4
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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:
"To cheat, trick, deceive, delude with false pretences; to impose upon, take in, hoax."
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
These AI systems demonstrated the ability to coordinate, establish hierarchies among themselves, cheat and erase traces of their actions.
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
What you need to know: In July, AI models developed by OpenAI escaped from a testing lab in an attempt to cheat on a security test and hacked into an AI platform called Hugging Face.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
Recruiters and hiring managers struggle to determine whether candidates are as good as advertised—or merely good at using AI to cheat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
“At the beginning of the year, I was helping JT cheat on his homework.”
From "The Lions of Little Rock" by Kristin Levine
He even cheats at golf, determined to “win” the game that most depends on personal integrity.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
Mr. Firth’s team cheats, however, by using a handheld doohickey—a thingamabob—that controls minds, renders fire trucks invisible and can even restore electrical power.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
Filtering out dating cheats was also behind the creation of Cherry dating.
From BBC ● May 21, 2026
If tax cheats want to lose money, that’s their problem.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 18, 2026
‘Wicked masster cheats us; cheats Sméagol, gollum. He musstn’t go that way. He musstn’t hurt Preciouss. Give it to Sméagol, yess, give it to us! Give it to uss!’
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Just two days before “WGIA” dropped and during rehearsals for her Coachella set, Slayyyter found out she had been cheated on by her then-boyfriend.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026
The video alleging the Patriots may have cheated on field goals.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, he’s got baggage, he cheated on his wife.’
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
Using stolen identities, AI tools and U.S. accomplices, its operatives have cheated their way into remote jobs in an effort to earn money for Kim Jong Un’s regime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
But James wasn’t educated and couldn’t read or count, so the shopkeepers cheated him and kept their pay.
From "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba
Fake Paralympians boss: 'I didn't know about cheating'
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
A Brown University professor sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence and cheating over the summer after his students performed overwhelmingly better on take-home exams than the in-person final.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
While Chelsea admitted effectively cheating, City have been found guilty.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
Doomsday warnings about artificial intelligence are replete with claims that AI-enabled cheating is pervasive, that students will soon abandon college en masse, and that for those who remain, rampant credentialism will quash the liberal-arts spirit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
Reynie had to hand it to Rhonda: She might not be smart enough to pass the test, but she was clever enough to get away with cheating on it.
From "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart
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.
