fraud

SayFRAWD/fɹɔd/UK/fɹɔːd/

Pluralfrauds (some meanings)

6 meanings of fraud

1
noununcountable
The crime of illegally obtaining money or property through deliberate deception.
Prosecutors built their case for fraud around forged signatures on the contracts.
The company collapsed after years of accounting fraud went undetected.
Similarscam, swindle, deceit, grift
Note
Law's name for deception that pays. The word reaches back through Old French to Latin fraus, "deceit, injury." As a crime it is usually uncountable: you commit fraud, or uncover years of accounting fraud. It can also count individual schemes, as in a string of frauds. Watch the article, though. "He committed fraud" names the crime, while "he is a fraud" points to the deceiver himself.
2
nouncountable or uncountable
An act of deception carried out to gain something unfair, undeserved, or unlawful.
The whole scheme was an elaborate fraud designed to win the family inheritance.
Claiming someone else's research as your own is a form of academic fraud.
Similarscam, swindle, hoax, con, deception
Note
Here the word reaches beyond the courtroom to any trick played for an unfair advantage, whether or not a law is broken. Alexander Pope pairs it with force in 1712, "Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends." The pairing names the two old ways of taking what is not yours, by cunning or by strength. Where the legal crime concerns money obtained illegally, this sense needs only the deceit and the unearned gain.
3
nouncountable
Someone who carries out deception for unfair or unlawful gain.
The investment guru turned out to be a fraud who pocketed his clients' money.
She unmasked the psychic as a fraud preying on grieving families.
Similarfraudster, cheat, swindler, impostor, faker
4
nouncountable or uncountable
The taking on of a false identity in order to deceive others for gain.
She committed fraud by posing as a licensed nurse for years.
The con artist relied on fraud, assuming the identity of a wealthy heir.
Similarimpersonation, imposture, deception

Less common meanings

5
nounobsoletecountable
A trap or snare laid to catch a person or animal.
to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud
1671, John Milton, “The First Book”
Note
Older English could use fraud for the snare itself, the thing a victim is drawn into. John Milton's Paradise Regain'd (1671) still has "to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud", where a modern reader will likely hear only deceit. The verb draw into is the clue to the concrete meaning. The abstract senses of deception have entirely replaced it, so today trap or snare is the word to use.
6
verbobsoletetransitive
To cheat or rob someone of money or rights through deception.
He sought to fraud the widow of her late husband's savings.
Dishonest clerks would fraud the company whenever the books went unchecked.
Note
The verb did exist, but only in older English, and defraud has long since taken its place. It was transitive and regular: frauds, frauding, frauded. It took the person cheated as its direct object. Met in an old text it is worth recognizing. In modern writing, though, frauded will read as a slip for defrauded, so it is best left in the past.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English "fraude" (recorded since 1345), from Old French "fraude," borrowed from Latin "fraus," meaning "deceit, injury, or offence."