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cheat

 - 3 dictionary results

cheat

  [cheet]
Use cheat in a Sentence
–verb (used with object)
1. to defraud; swindle: He cheated her out of her inheritance.
2. to deceive; influence by fraud: He cheated us into believing him a hero.
3. to elude; deprive of something expected: He cheated the law by suicide.
–verb (used without object)
4. to practice fraud or deceit: She cheats without regrets.
5. to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards.
6. to take an examination or test in a dishonest way, as by improper access to answers.
7. Informal. to be sexually unfaithful (often fol. by on): Her husband knew she had been cheating all along. He cheated on his wife.
–noun
8. a person who acts dishonestly, deceives, or defrauds: He is a cheat and a liar.
9. a fraud; swindle; deception: The game was a cheat.
10. Law. the fraudulent obtaining of another's property by a pretense or trick.
11. an impostor: The man who passed as an earl was a cheat.
Origin:
1325–75; ME chet (n.) (aph. for achet, var. of eschet escheat ); cheten to escheat, deriv. of chet (n.)

Related forms:
cheat⋅a⋅ble, adjective
cheat⋅ing⋅ly, adverb

Synonyms:
1. mislead, dupe, delude; gull, con; hoax, fool. Cheat, deceive, trick, victimize refer to the use of fraud or artifice deliberately to hoodwink or obtain an unfair advantage over someone. Cheat implies conducting matters fraudulently, esp. for profit to oneself: to cheat at cards. Deceive suggests deliberately misleading or deluding, to produce misunderstanding or to prevent someone from knowing the truth: to deceive one's parents. To trick is to deceive by a stratagem, often of a petty, crafty, or dishonorable kind: to trick someone into signing a note. To victimize is to make a victim of; the emotional connotation makes the cheating, deception, or trickery seem particularly dastardly: to victimize a blind man. 8. swindler, trickster, sharper, dodger, charlatan, fraud, fake, phony, mountebank. 9. imposture, artifice, trick, hoax.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To cheat
cheat   (chēt)   
v.   cheat·ed, cheat·ing, cheats

v.   tr.

  1. To deceive by trickery; swindle: cheated customers by overcharging them for purchases.

  2. To deprive by trickery; defraud: cheated them of their land.

  3. To mislead; fool: illusions that cheat the eye.

  4. To elude; escape: cheat death.

v.   intr.

  1. To act dishonestly; practice fraud.

  2. To violate rules deliberately, as in a game: was accused of cheating at cards.

  3. Informal To be sexually unfaithful: cheat on a spouse.

  4. Baseball To position oneself closer to a certain area than is normal or expected: The shortstop cheated toward second base.

n.  

  1. An act of cheating; a fraud or swindle.

  2. One who cheats; a swindler.

  3. A computer application, password, or disallowed technique used to advance to a higher skill level in a computer video game.

  4. Law Fraudulent acquisition of another's property.

  5. Botany An annual European species of brome grass (Bromus secalinus) widely naturalized in temperate regions.


[Middle English cheten, to confiscate, short for acheten, variant of escheten, from eschete, escheat; see escheat.]
cheat'er n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

cheat 
c.1375, aphetic of O.Fr. escheat, legal term for revision of property to state when owner dies without heirs, lit. "that which falls to one," pp. of escheoir "befall by chance, happen, devolve," from V.L. *excadere "to fall away," from L. ex- "out" + cadere "to fall" (see case (1)). Meaning evolved through "confiscate" (c.1440) to "deprive unfairly" (1590). To cheat on (someone) "be sexually unfaithful" first recorded 1934.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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