swindle
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L328920 on Wikidata ↗verb
- cheat, steal
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈswɪnd(ə)l/
name
Etymology: * As an English surname, variant of Swindell. * As a German surname, Americanized from Schwindell, a diminutive of the lost Middle High German adjective swinde (“impetuous, wild”).
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: Back-formation from swindler, from German Schwindler, from German schwindeln, from Middle High German swindeln, swindelen, from Old High German swintilōn, frequentative of the verb swintan, from Proto-West Germanic *swindan (“to diminish”). See also Modern German schwindeln, Danish svindel and svindle, Dutch zwindelen and zwendelen, Yiddish שווינדל (shvindl), Low German swinneln, Middle English swinden (“to languish, waste away”).
- An instance of swindling.
“There were men there who had committed merciless robberies, cruel murders, heartless swindles, abominable depravities.”
“[T]he scandal was the pretty common one of a corrupt agreement between hotel proprietors and a salesman who took and gave secret commissions, so that his business had a monopoly of all the drink sold in the place. It wasn't even an open slavery like an ordinary tied house; it was a swindle at the expense of everybody the manager was supposed to serve.”
- Anything that is deceptively not what it appears to be.
- An instance wherein a player in a losing position plays a clever move that provokes an error from the opponent, thus achieving a win or a draw.
verb
Etymology: Back-formation from swindler, from German Schwindler, from German schwindeln, from Middle High German swindeln, swindelen, from Old High German swintilōn, frequentative of the verb swintan, from Proto-West Germanic *swindan (“to diminish”). See also Modern German schwindeln, Danish svindel and svindle, Dutch zwindelen and zwendelen, Yiddish שווינדל (shvindl), Low German swinneln, Middle English swinden (“to languish, waste away”).
- To defraud.
“The two men swindled the company out of $160,000.”
“Such Nations cannot have a King to command them; can only have this or the other scandalous swindling Copper Captain, constitutional Gilt Mountebank, or other the like unsalutary entity by way of King; and the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children in a frightful and tragical manner, little noticed in the Penny Newspapers and Periodical Literatures of this generation.”
- To obtain (money or property) by fraudulent or deceitful methods.
“She swindled more than £200 out of me.”
- For a player in a losing position to play a clever move that provokes an error from the opponent, thus achieving a win or a draw.