swindle

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English

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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).

Pronunciation

Verb

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.):
      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, 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. (ambitransitive) 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.

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Noun

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:
      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.

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