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:
The swarm chaser data showed that the agents had their internet access restricted, and they figured out ways to cheat in order to get better access, said David, the swarm chaser.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
OpenAI has disclosed that AI agents in July tried to cheat on an evaluation by hacking the AI software company Hugging Face.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
"To cheat, trick, deceive, delude with false pretences; to impose upon, take in, hoax."
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
I don’t like to call it a cheat day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
He whispered so that only Samir and I could hear, “You cheat them, and they’ll curse us.”
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
The move, orchestrated by Everett to satisfy the demands of the company’s top-dollar backers, cheats Michael out of his stock options and equity in the company.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Reward hacking is the AI version of videogame cheats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
He even cheats at golf, determined to “win” the game that most depends on personal integrity.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
Filtering out dating cheats was also behind the creation of Cherry dating.
From BBC ● May 21, 2026
“Now, now, a boy who cheats at cards should be able to answer that.”
From "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg
Researchers also gave Claude an impossible task and measured desperation rising on its own with each failure, until the model cheated.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
"To feel cheated by your own brother has been painful. He can't just put it behind him."
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, he’s got baggage, he cheated on his wife.’
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
Related: ‘I found out too late’: My stepmother cheated me out of $500K from my father’s estate.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
To be cheated, and to have no recourse, was painful.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
About 6% said they would regard it as cheating, while a further 19% said they would "not be okay with it".
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
Mr. Anderson covers it all, from Tom Brady’s high-school struggles to the NFL’s infamous $20 million “deflate-gate” investigation, during which the Patriots were accused of cheating, to his difficult divorce.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Now, 18 years later, it has emerged that the club was at the heart of the largest cheating scheme in English soccer history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Sandpapergate, the scandal that engulfed Australia eight years ago, was blatant cheating played out in real time on live television to a global audience.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
“You bet there is! This school is cheating my son out of what is rightfully his.”
From "Shine!" by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
