swindle
/ˈswɪndəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.67 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
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.
noun
Anything that is deceptively not what it appears to be.
noun
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.
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "She swindled more than £200 out of me."
- "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."
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Schwindler, schwindeln, swindeln, swintilōn, *swindan, -