Search the Dictionary

To cheat defraud grossly, or with deliberate artifice; as, to swindle a man out of his property. Lammote . . . has swindled one of them out of three hundred livres. Carlyle.

One who swindles, or defrauds grossly; one who makes a practice of defrauding others by imposition or deliberate artifice; a cheat.

Swindling; rougery. [R.] "Swindlery and blackguardism." Carlyle.

A swindler; one who deceives by trickery. [Colloq.] Arbuthnot.

To cheat; to chouse; to swindle; to defraud; -- often with out. [Colloq.]

To deceive and defraud; to impose upon; to trick; to swindle. I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of this island. Shak.

A swindler. B. Jonson.

ling operation in which advantage is taken of the confidence reposed by the victim in the swindler. -- Confidence man, a swindler. -- To take into one's confidence, to admit to a knowledge of one's feelings, purposes, or affairs.

A cheat; a swindle. [Slang, Eng.]

To cheat; to swindle; to steal; to rob.

A trick or fraud; a swindle. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

A swindler; a knave; a cheat. [Slang] Without a confederate the . . . game of baccarat does not . . . offer many chances for the Greek. Sat. Rev.

public land has been paid to the officer entitled to receive it. [U.S.] -- Land shark, a swindler of sailors on shore. [Sailors' Cant] -- Land side (a) That side of anything in or on the sea, as of an island or ship, which is turned toward the land. (b) The side of a plow which is opposite to the moldboard and which p…

Mob law, law administered by the mob; lynch law. -- Swell mob, well dressed thieves and swindlers, regarded collectively. [Slang] Dickens.

To pluck; to fleece; to swindle by tricks in gambling. [Slang] Smart. He's pigeoned and undone. Observer.

A plan; an artifice; a swindle; a trick. [Slang] It was n't a bad plant, that of mine, on Fikey. Dickens.

A rascal; a swindler; a rogue. De Quincey.

To play the petty thief; to practice fraud or trickery; to swindle. Neither sharks for a cup or a reckoning. Bp. Earle.

To swindle by means of small cups or thimbles, and a pea or small ball placed under one of them and quickly shifted to another, the victim laying a wager that he knows under which cup it is; hence, to cheat by any trick.

a swindler who pretends to tap wires or otherwise intercept advance telegraphic news for betting. -- Wire tapping.