swindle
Americanverb (used with object)
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swindles,
present (3rd person singular)
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swindled,
past participle, past
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swindling
present participle
verb (used without object)
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swindles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
swindled,
past participle, past
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swindling
present participle
noun
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swindles
plural
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an act of swindling or a fraudulent transaction or scheme.
-
anything deceptive; a fraud.
This advertisement is a real swindle.
verb
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to cheat (someone) of money, etc; defraud
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(tr) to obtain (money, etc) by fraud
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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swindlesimple
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swindlessimple
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have swindledperfect
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has swindledperfect
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am swindlingprogressive
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are swindlingprogressive
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is swindlingprogressive
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have been swindlingperfect progressive
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has been swindlingperfect progressive
Past
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swindledsimple
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had swindledperfect
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was swindlingprogressive
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were swindlingprogressive
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had been swindlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of swindle
First recorded in 1775–85; back formation from swindler ( def. )
Explanation
To swindle is to cheat or steal. You can swindle money, goods, ideas, and anything else that can be stolen, but be careful, because someone can also swindle you. In the late 1700s, the verb swindle formed from swindler, which means “giddy person, cheat.” Swindle can be a noun or a verb. When you get something by less than honest means, that’s a swindle. A successful act of swindle often involves some scheme or rigging of the system. Hollywood loves a good swindle — think of all the movies that show a bank robbery or people lying about who they are. Another funny word for swindle is bamboozle.
Vocabulary lists containing swindle
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A Streetcar Named Desire
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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:
Finance professionals, doctors and lawyers recount being taken in by tricks like the jury-duty swindle that stole $25,000 from a Florida woman.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
And Uber is helping investigators to try to catch whoever was behind the attempted swindle.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 19, 2024
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said criminals will constantly change how they present scams to lure people in and swindle them.
From BBC ● Jan. 19, 2024
Purlie has a con artist’s cheek, but he’s trying to swindle on behalf of his community.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2023
However, from the color of his rays she knew at a glance whether he was hatching a swindle, and she could defuse one of his tantrums with a few simple, mocking words.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
Americans are awash in scams, and while some swindles originate overseas, they are increasingly coming from closer to home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
This also speaks to the hollowness that all ideological language contains, to paraphrase Orwell, in its swindles and perversions, its slovenliness and vagueness.
From Salon ● Apr. 16, 2023
"Inflation swindles the bond investor ... it swindles the person who keeps their cash under their mattress, it swindles almost everybody," Buffett said.
From Reuters ● Apr. 30, 2022
The Con In the new episode “The Heiress Con,” a woman claiming to be an Irish heiress swindles thousands of dollars from her friend.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2020
A volume might be filled detailing such swindles as that of Grubbs and Ringgold.
From Osceola the Seminole The Red Fawn of the Flower Land by Mayne Reid
But voters weren’t about to get swindled again.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
Being considered is Musk's claim that Altman - with whom he founded OpenAI - has swindled him out of millions of dollars and reneged on the ChatGPT-maker's original non-profit mission.
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
A Philippine congressional committee rejected impeachment complaints against President Ferdinand Marcos on Wednesday over allegations he swindled taxpayers out of billions of dollars.
From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026
Her elaborate schemes, among them posing as the heiress to an Irish fortune, swindled people out of huge sums and left Marianne Smyth with two felony convictions.
From New York Times ● May 9, 2024
But maybe, I thought, she won’t wind up swindled by a con man someday because of having known me.
From "Liar, Liar" by Gary Paulsen
The company argued attorneys were swindling their own clients, inflating medical bills of car crash victims to increase the value of the settlement and then pocketing a hefty chunk of the payouts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
The 33-year-old fintech entrepreneur last month was sentenced to seven years in prison for swindling JPMorganChase, which purchased her student financial-aid startup in 2021 for $175 million.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025
He invoked a past prosperity, but his actual plans are to make a fortune by swindling the rest of us.
From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2025
The following year, however, Violet and her mother were found guilty of swindling Violet’s ex-lover and their widowed neighbour.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2024
A Greek from the delta trading center of Nau- cratis, Cleomenes was an ambiguous Boss Tweed-like figure, chiefly remembered for swindling Egyptians and Greeks alike of enormous sums of money.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
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.
