Wiktionary

swindle

See also: Swindle

English

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Etymology

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Back-formation from swindler, from German Schwindler, from German schwindeln, from Middle High German swindeln, swindelen, from Old High German swintiln, 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”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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swindle (third-person singular simple present swindles, present participle swindling, simple past and past participle swindled)

  1. (transitive) To defraud.
    The two men swindled the company out of $160,000.
    • 1865, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.)‎[1]:
      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.
    • 2015 December 3, Tracy Alloway, “There's Been a Bezzle-Fueled Boom in Bonds”, in Markets‎[2], Bloomberg News, retrieved 2021-08-16:
      That word is bezzle. It describes the period in which an embezzler has stolen a man's money but the victim does not yet realize he's been swindled.
  2. (transitive, intransitive) To obtain (money or property) by fraudulent or deceitful methods.
    She swindled more than £200 out of me.
  3. (chess) 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

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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swindle (plural swindles)

  1. An instance of swindling.
    • 1914, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 16, in The Subterranean Brotherhood:
      There were men there who had committed merciless robberies, cruel murders, heartless swindles, abominable depravities.
    • 1935, G. K. Chesterton, The Scandal of Father Brown:
      [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.
  2. Anything that is deceptively not what it appears to be.
  3. (chess) 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.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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