Search the Dictionary

The act of prevailing over another by arts, address, or fraud; deception; fraud; imposture; delusion. A school in which he learns sly circumvention. Cowper.

To grow clear or bright; to clear up. Whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the discoursing with another. Bacon.

One who conspires in a fraud.

A secret agreement and cooperation for a fraudulent or deceitful purpose; a playing into each other's hands; deceit; fraud; cunning. The foxe, maister of collusion. Spenser. That they [miracles] be done publicly, in the face of the world, that there may be no room to suspect artifice and collusion. Atterbury. By the ig…

ation or disturbance; to tranquilize; to soothe; to calm; to quiet. Compose thy mind; Nor frauds are here contrived, nor force designed. Dryden.

To pardon; to forgive. A fraud which he had either concocted or condoned. W. Black. It would have been magnanimous in the men then in power to have overlooked all these things, and, condoning the politics, to have rewarded the poetry of Burns. J. C. Shairp.

that a quorum is not present. (c) To prevent the accession of (a person) to office, by a fraudulent return or count of the votes cast; -- said of a candidate really elected. [Colloq.]

Fabricated in imitation of something else, with a view to defraud by passing the false copy for genuine or original; as, counterfeit antiques; counterfeit coin. "No counterfeit gem." Robinson (More's Utopia).

Deceit; fraud; artifice. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Deceitful; collusive; fraudulent; dishonest.

The art or practice of cozening; artifice; fraud. Shak.

One who cheats or defrauds.

A person given to fraudulent practices; an accomplice of thieves, forgers, etc. [Cant, U.S.] By hook or by crook, in some way or other; by fair means or foul.

False; dishonest; fraudulent; as, crooked dealings. Crooked whisky, whisky on wich the paiment of duty has been fraudulently evaded. [Slang, U.S.] Barlett.

Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart. Wharton.

The faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft. Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. Locke. We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. Bacon.

r causes him to believe what is false; a contrivance to entrap; deception; a wily device; fraud. Making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit. Amos viii. 5. Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. Milton. Yet still we hug the dear deceit. N. Cotton.

Full of, or characterized by, deceit; serving to mislead or insnare; trickish; fraudulent; cheating; insincere. Harboring foul deceitful thoughts. Shak.

Fitted to deceive; deceitful. [Obs.] The fraud of deceivable traditions. Milton.

To deprive by fraud or stealth; to defraud. [Obs.] Plant fruit trees in large borders, and set therein fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees. Bacon.