cheat
pronunciation
How to pronounce cheat in British English:
UK [tʃiːt]
How to pronounce cheat in American English:
US [tʃiːt]
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- Noun:
- weedy annual grass often occurs in grainfields and other cultivated land; seeds sometimes considered poisonous
- weedy annual native to Europe but widely distributed as a weed especially in wheat
- someone who leads you to believe something that is not true
- the act of swindling by some fraudulent scheme
- a deception for profit to yourself
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- Verb:
- deprive somebody of something by deceit
- defeat someone in an expectation through trickery or deceit
- engage in deceitful behavior; practice trickery or fraud
- be sexually unfaithful to one's partner in marriage
Word Origin
- cheat
- cheat: [14] Cheat is a reduced form of escheat, a legal term for the reversion of property to the state on the death of the owner without heirs. This came from Old French escheoite, a derivative of the past participle of the verb escheoir ‘befall by chance, happen, devolve’, from Vulgar Latin *excadēre ‘fall away’, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and Latin cadere ‘fall’ (source of a wide range of English words from case ‘circumstance’ to occasion).The semantic steps leading to the modern English sense of cheat seem to be ‘confiscate’; ‘deprive of something dishonestly’; ‘deceive’.=> cadence, case, escheat, occasion, occident
- cheat (v.)
- mid-15c., "to escheat," a shortening of Old French escheat, legal term for revision of property to the state when the owner dies without heirs, literally "that which falls to one," past participle of escheoir "happen, befall, occur, take place; fall due; lapse (legally)," from Late Latin *excadere "fall away, fall out," from Latin ex- "out" (see ex-) + cadere "to fall" (see case (n.1)). Also compare escheat. The royal officers evidently had a low reputation. Meaning evolved through "confiscate" (mid-15c.) to "deprive unfairly" (1580s). To cheat on (someone) "be sexually unfaithful" first recorded 1934. Related: Cheated; cheating.
- cheat (n.)
- late 14c., "forfeited property," from cheat (v.). Meaning "a deceptive act" is from 1640s; earlier, in thieves' jargon, it meant "a stolen thing" (late 16c.), and earlier still "dice" (1530s). Meaning "a swindler" is from 1660s.
Example
- 1. Then she presented them with an opportunity to cheat .
- 2. Farmers can cheat , as australians have found .
- 3. Harsh punishments are ineffective , since the cheat must first be caught .
- 4. Crowds may be harder to cheat than individuals .
- 5. Those who cheat on their expenses will find it harder to rationalise their corruption .