cheat

[cheet]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR cheat ON THESAURUS.COM

verb (used with object)

to defraud; swindle: He cheated her out of her inheritance.

to deceive; influence by fraud: He cheated us into believing him a hero.

to elude; deprive of something expected: He cheated the law by suicide.

verb (used without object)

to practice fraud or deceit: She cheats without regrets.

to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards.

to take an examination or test in a dishonest way, as by improper access to answers.

Informal. to be sexually unfaithful (often followed by on): Her husband knew she had been cheating all along. He cheated on his wife.

noun

a person who acts dishonestly, deceives, or defrauds: He is a cheat and a liar.

a fraud; swindle; deception: The game was a cheat.

Law. the fraudulent obtaining of another's property by a pretense or trick.

an impostor: The man who passed as an earl was a cheat.

Origin of cheat

1325–75; Middle English chet (noun) (aphetic for achet, variant of eschet escheat); cheten to escheat, derivative of chet (noun)

Related formscheat·a·ble, adjectivecheat·ing·ly, adverbout·cheat, verb (used with object)un·cheat·ed, adjectiveun·cheat·ing, adjective

Synonyms for cheat

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR cheat ON THESAURUS.COM

1. mislead, dupe, delude; gull, con; hoax, fool. 8. swindler, trickster, sharper, dodger, charlatan, fraud, fake, phony, mountebank. 9. imposture, artifice, trick, hoax.

Synonym study

1. 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.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for cheat

hypocrite, trickster, impostor, rascal, crook, swindler, rogue, charlatan, chicanery, scam, trickery, fraud, deception, swindle, mislead, fleece, hoodwink, delude, bilk, con

Examples from the Web for cheat

Contemporary Examples of cheat

Cheat, in other words—on God, on our fellow man, ultimately, on ourselves.
McConaughey’s ‘Stand’—And Ours
James Poulos
December 5, 2014
If a Queen did cheat, her crimes fade into insignificance compared to the extensive philandering engaged in by medieval monarchs.
The Sex Life of King Richard III's Randy Great Great Great Grandfather
Tom Sykes
December 4, 2014
Clients who are wary of online transactions are liable to see escorts with print ads as less likely to cheat or scam them.
The Importance of Adult Classifieds
Hazlitt
September 6, 2014
Vennare adds that cheat days can occasionally do more harm than good.
When Is It OK to Cheat? The Pros and Cons of Cheat Days
DailyBurn
July 14, 2014
And if so, is it possible to “cheat” without feeling the effects or seeing them on the scale?
When Is It OK to Cheat? The Pros and Cons of Cheat Days
DailyBurn
July 14, 2014

Historical Examples of cheat

He so humble, so aged, so loth to take our money—and yet a villain and a cheat.
The White Company
Arthur Conan Doyle
The Bacillus is a cheat; every woman to her lover is the most beautiful!
The Bacillus of Beauty
Harriet Stark
We thought it no harm to cheat the people of the canteens, for we knew they were doing all they could to cheat us.
Ned Myers
James Fenimore Cooper
He was fond of saying indelicate things, and used to cheat at cards.
The Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Bierce
A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding.
The Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Bierce

British Dictionary definitions for cheat

cheat

verb

to deceive or practise deceit, esp for one's own gain; trick or swindle (someone)

(intr) to obtain unfair advantage by trickery, as in a game of cards

(tr) to escape or avoid (something unpleasant) by luck or cunningto cheat death

(when intr, usually foll by on) informal to be sexually unfaithful to (one's wife, husband, or lover)

noun

a person who cheats

a deliberately dishonest transaction, esp for gain; fraud

informal sham

law the obtaining of another's property by fraudulent means

the usual US name for rye-brome

Derived Formscheatable, adjectivecheater, nouncheatingly, adverb

Word Origin for cheat

C14: short for escheat

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for cheat

mid-15c., "to escheat," a shortening of Old French escheat, legal term for revision of property to the state when the owner dies without heirs, literally "that which falls to one," past participle of escheoir "befall by chance, happen, devolve," from Vulgar Latin *excadere "to fall away," from Latin ex- "out" (see ex-) + cadere "to fall" (see case (n.1)). Also cf. escheat. The royal officers evidently had a low reputation. Meaning evolved through "confiscate" (mid-15c.) to "deprive unfairly" (1580s). To cheat on (someone) "be sexually unfaithful" first recorded 1934. Related: Cheated; cheating.

late 14c., "forfeited property," from cheat (v.). Meaning "a deceptive act" is from 1640s; earlier, in thieves' jargon, it meant "a stolen thing" (late 16c.), and earlier still "dice" (1530s). Meaning "a swindler" is from 1660s.