fraud

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fɹɔːd/
• (US) enPR: frôd, IPA^(key): /fɹɔd/
• (cot–caught merger, Northern Cities Vowel Shift) enPR: frŏd, IPA^(key): /fɹɑd/
• Rhymes: -ɔːd

Noun

fraud (countable and uncountable, plural frauds)

1. (law) The crime of stealing or otherwise illegally obtaining money by use of deception tactics.
2. Any act of deception carried out for the purpose of unfair, undeserved and/or unlawful gain.
   • Alexander Pope

     If success a lover's toil attends, / Few ask, if fraud or force attained 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.
5. (obsolete) A trap or snare.
   • Milton

     to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud

Verb

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

1. (obsolete) To defraud

See also

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