fraud

From Middle English fraude (recorded since 1345), from Old French fraude, a borrowing from Latin fraus (“deceit, injury, offence”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fɹɔːd/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) enPR: frôd, IPA^(key): /fɹɔd/
• (cot–caught merger, Inland Northern American) enPR: frŏd, IPA^(key): /fɹɑd/

  • Audio (Mid-Atlantic)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːd

fraud (countable and uncountable, plural frauds)

1. (law) The crime of stealing or otherwise illegally obtaining money by use of deception tactics.

   Synonyms: swindle, scam, deceit, grift

2. Any act of deception carried out for the purpose of unfair, undeserved or unlawful gain.
   • 1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, canto II:

     When success a lover's toil attends, / Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎:

     But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts.

3. The assumption of a false identity to such deceptive end.
4. A person who performs any such trick.

   Synonyms: faker, fraudster, imposter, trickster; see also Thesaurus:deceiver

5. (obsolete) A trap or snare.
   • 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC:

     to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud

fraud (third-person singular simple present frauds, present participle frauding, simple past and past participle frauded)

1. (obsolete) To defraud

• embezzlement
• false billing
• false advertising
• forgery
• identity theft
• predatory lending
• quackery
• usury
• white-collar crime

fraud f

1. (pre-1938) alternative form of frau