cheat

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See also: Cheat

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /t͡ʃiːt/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -iːt

Etymology 1[edit]

Inherited from Middle English acheten, variant of escheten, from Old French escheoiter, from the noun (see below). Displaced native Old English beswīcan.

Verb[edit]

cheat (third-person singular simple present cheats, present participle cheating, simple past and past participle cheated)

  1. (intransitive) To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
    Synonym: break the rules
    My brother flunked biology because he cheated on his mid-term.
  2. (intransitive) To be unfaithful to one's spouse or partner; to commit adultery, or to engage in sexual or romantic conduct with a person other than one's partner in contravention of the rules of society or agreement in the relationship.
    My husband cheated on me with his secretary.
    After he found out his wife cheated, he left her.
  3. (transitive) To manage to avoid something even though it seemed inevitable.
    He cheated death when his car collided with a moving train.
    I feel as if I've cheated fate.
  4. (transitive) To deceive; to fool; to trick.
    Synonyms: belirt, blench, lirt
    My ex-wife cheated me out of $40,000.
    He cheated his way into office.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene ii]:
      I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of this island.
    • 1819 July 31​, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “Rural Life in England”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number II, New York, N.Y.: […] C. S. Van Winkle, […], OCLC 1090970992, page 130:
      [T]he holly providentially planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and throw in a gleam of green summer to cheer the fireside:—all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind.
    • 2018, Peter Smith, quoting Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistols: The Pride of Punk, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page xxvi:
      The gig ended with Rotten uttering the now famous line, “Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?” On January 17, the Sex Pistols split up.
Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

Inherited from Middle English chete, an aphetic form of eschete (“the reversion of property to the state”), from Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), from the past participle of eschoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from Vulgar Latin *excadō, from Latin ex + cadō (“I fall”).

Noun[edit]

cheat (plural cheats)

  1. Someone who cheats.
    Synonym: (informal) cheater
  2. An act of deception or fraud; that which is the means of fraud or deception.
    Synonyms: fraud, trick, imposition, imposture
  3. The weed cheatgrass.
  4. (card games) A card game where the goal is to have no cards remaining in a hand, often by telling lies.
    Synonyms: bullshit, BS, I doubt it
  5. (video games) A hidden means of gaining an unfair advantage in a video game, often by entering a cheat code.
    • 1992, Phil Howard, Cheat Mode (in Amstrad Action issue 76, January 1992, page 32)
      I've had a number of requests for a cheat for Turrican the first. Yes, there is a keypress built in […]
Synonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
  • → French: cheat
  • → German: Cheat
Translations[edit]
act of deception or fraud; that which is the means of fraud or deception — See also translations at fraud,‎ trick,‎ imposition,‎ imposture
cheatgrass — see cheatgrass

Etymology 3[edit]

Inherited from Middle English chet (“low-quality bread”), of unknown origin; compare manchet.

Noun[edit]

cheat (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) A sort of low-quality bread.
    • 1587, Raphaell Holinshed; Iohn Hooker, “Of the food and diet of the Engliſh”, in The firſt and ſecond volumes of Chronicles […] , volume I, London: Henry Denham, page 169:
      The raueled cheat therfore is generallie ſo made that out of one buſhell of meale, after two and twentie pounds of bran be ſifted and taken from it (wherevnto they ad the gurgeons that riſe from the manchet) they make thirtie cast, euerie lofe weighing eightéene ounces into the ouen and ſixteene ounces out […]
    • c. 1624, Homer, George Chapman, transl., The crowne of all Homers workes Batrachomyomachia […] ‎[1], Iohn Bill, page 3:
      Takes part with them, at ſhore: their pureſt cheat, / Thrice boulted, kneaded, and ſubdu'd in paſt […]
    • 1746, Thomas Moffett; Christopher Bennet, Health's Improvement […] ‎[2], London: T. Oſborne, page 339:
      Where by the way note, that loaves made of pure Wheaten Meal require both more Leaven and more labouring, and more baking than either coarſe Cheat or than Bread Mingled of Meal and Grudgins.
Translations[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

English cheat

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cheat m (plural cheats)

  1. (video games) cheat
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