FRAUD

n. 1 deception, trickery, cheating, sharp practice, chicanery, deceit, swindling, double-dealing, duplicity, artifice, craft, guile, humbug, humbuggery, treachery, Colloq monkey business, funny business, hanky-panky The company directors have been convicted of fraud 2 trick, hoax, swindle, deception, cheat, wile, stratagem, dodge, bilk, ruse, sham, fake, subterfuge, Colloq flimflam, Slang gyp, rip-off, scam The investigation exposed extensive fraud in the handling of local government funds 3 deceiver, trickster, cheat(er), impostor, swindler, charlatan, humbug, sharper, shark, bilk(er), quack, mountebank, fake(r), pretender, bluff(er), confidence man, inveigler, defrauder; scoundrel, rogue, Archaic knave; Colloq con man or artist, phoney or US also phony, flimflam artist, flimflammer, US and Canadian four-flusher; Slang US barracuda He is a fraud who extracts protection money from the elderly