sham
Americannoun
adjective
-
pretended; counterfeit; feigned.
sham attacks; a sham Gothic façade.
- Synonyms:
- mock, make-believe, spurious
- Antonyms:
- genuine
-
designed, made, or used as a sham.
verb (used with object)
-
shams,
present (3rd person singular)
-
shammed,
past participle, past
-
shamming
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
shams,
present (3rd person singular)
-
shammed,
past participle, past
-
shamming
present participle
noun
-
anything that is not what it purports or appears to be
-
something false, fake, or fictitious that purports to be genuine
-
a person who pretends to be something other than he is
adjective
verb
Synonym Usage
See false.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
shamsimple
-
shamssimple
-
have shammedperfect
-
has shammedperfect
-
am shammingprogressive
-
are shammingprogressive
-
is shammingprogressive
-
have been shammingperfect progressive
-
has been shammingperfect progressive
Past
-
shammedsimple
-
had shammedperfect
-
was shammingprogressive
-
were shammingprogressive
-
had been shammingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sham
First recorded in 1670–80; perhaps an alteration of shame ( def. ); origin uncertain
Explanation
A sham is a fake. If you frequently order products advertised on late-night, hour-long television commercials, you’ve probably ended up with at least one item that was a sham. All-purpose, industrial strength stain remover, anyone? Sham can be used to refer to people as well as to things. Remember that doctor from the late-night TV commercial advertising UltraMiracleCure vitamin pills? He’s probably a sham, or a quack. Some sources claim that the word sham originated in the 17th century and was derived from the English word shame, but who knows? Maybe that theory’s a sham too.
Vocabulary lists containing sham
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
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Refugee
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This Week in Words: April 1 - 6, 2018
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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:
That is the Oxford English definition of the word "sham".
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
How many more sham businesses exist in California?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
The second group used the real and sham purifiers in reverse order.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
The purported poll by Median Strategies, reported in the California Post and touted on social media by Mayor Bass last week, was later exposed as a sham by The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Mark Antony went along with the sham, but it cost him dearly.
From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby
In Minnesota, some Medicaid autism treatment centers, transportation providers and housing purveyors were shams.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 2026
Even so, auditors at EY, also known as Ernst & Young, eventually blessed the transactions, which federal authorities now claim were shams, according to previously unreported documents made public in a court case last year.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2022
Tatyana Stanovaya, founder and CEO of R.Politik, an independent think tank on Russian politics, thinks Putin doesn’t want to rush the referendums and run the risk of them being denounced as shams.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2022
He knows he can turn proceduralist rules into shams, and he knows most of his staff is either too constrained to do anything about it or unaware of what’s really going on.
From Slate ● Dec. 2, 2021
The history of race relations in Durham was, after all, a long line of such shams extending back for a century.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
I don’t feel like I got shammed or look like a fool.
From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2018
One of them stumbled, fell, held his breath and shammed dead.
From The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
I think now that she shammed sleep, in order to distract my attention from her.
From A Modern Wizard by Rodrigues Ottolengui
It was to the right of the hearth, and he had shammed sleep when it had been lifted once before.
From A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison
At the time of the inquest he was ill, and so couldn't attend—I think the police thought he shammed illness.
From Love and hatred by Marie Belloc Lowndes
In a sense, then, because the shamming always happened openly, the revelation that it was shamatory feels underwhelming.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2021
When a man grows insane, they treat him as shamming.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2018
We hope that, like the seemingly mad Edgar in King Lear, Daryl is just shamming – and that he will, like the Shakespearean dissembler, cast off his mask and take out the evil trash.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 14, 2016
If your point is that Peter is only shamming about his politics, how do you explain this willingness to be imprisoned for them?
From The Guardian ● Oct. 5, 2010
He was not even sure if Cluny was shamming, pretending that his injuries were severe merely as some kind of test or trap that he had set for his captains.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
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.
