dishonest
[dis-on-ist]
- not honest; disposed to lie, cheat, or steal; not worthy of trust or belief: a dishonest person.
- proceeding from or exhibiting lack of honesty; fraudulent: a dishonest advertisement.
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Origin of dishonest
Synonyms
See more synonyms for dishonest on Thesaurus.com1. unscrupulous, knavish, deceitful, perfidious. 2. false.
Synonym study
1. See corrupt.
Antonyms
1, 2. honest.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for dishonest
Contemporary Examples
How can the police do that if the community views them as dishonest, or even dangerous?
Bureaucracies are inefficient and dishonest—maybe not intentionally . . . but because there are too many moving parts.
Trying to put the onus onto someone else for your own decisions is really cowardly and kind of dishonest.
She never lied to him or was dishonest to him, and we were very careful to point that out in the movie, but Tom needed to grow up.
Marc Webb Takes Us Inside ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ and Discusses His Rise to the A-ListMarlow Stern
March 15, 2014
Among them is a distinction between “honest graft” and “dishonest graft.”
Historical Examples
"If you think it dishonourable or dishonest—" said Beaufort, irresolutely.
Night and Morning, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
I dare say it was because I had been so dishonest myself just before.
Wilfrid CumbermedeGeorge MacDonald
And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?
MenoPlato
And then Jed Winslow did what was perhaps the first dishonest thing he had ever done.
ShavingsJoseph C. Lincoln
In fact he wrote that he thought it all wrong, deceitful, bordering on the dishonest.
ShavingsJoseph C. Lincoln
dishonest
- not honest or fair; deceiving or fraudulent
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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 dishonest
adj.
late 14c., from Old French deshoneste (13c., Modern French déshonnête) "dishonorable, horrible, indecent," perhaps from a Medieval Latin or Gallo-Romance compound of Latin dis- "not" (see dis-) + honestus "honorable" (see honest). The Latin formation was dehonestus. Related: Dishonestly.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper