con artist

See also: con-artist

English

Alternative forms

• con-artist

Etymology

Clipping of confidence artist.

Noun

con artist (plural con artists)

1. A person who defrauds or swindles others after first gaining their trust; a scam operator.

   Synonyms: conman, con; see also Thesaurus:confidence trickster, Thesaurus:deceiver

   • 2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     He's the FBI agent antagonist in Catch Me If You Can (2002) opposite a buoyantly charming young Leonardo DiCaprio as con artist Frank Abagnale, but his character is more of a determined cat to Leo's mouse than a real foil; he's simply a prim Eisenhower-era man with a job to do.

   • 2021 February 23, Rafael Behr, “Brexit is a machine to generate perpetual grievance. It's doing its job perfectly”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Leavers will be attracted to that story because it spares them the discomfort of admitting that they voted for a con, and then made a prime minister of the con artist.

Translations

scam operator, conman

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: estafador m, estafa (ca) m or f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 騙子／骗子 (zh) (piànzi)

• Czech: podvodník (cs) m
• Danish: svindler (da) c
• Esperanto: fripono (eo), trompisto
• Finnish: huijari (fi), petkuttaja (fi)
• French: escroc (fr) m or f, arnaqueur (fr) m, arnaqueuse (fr) f
• Galician: estafador m, argalleiro (gl)
• German: Trickbetrüger m, Trickbetrügerin f, Hochstapler (de) m, Hochstaplerin (de) f, Schwindler (de) m, Schwindlerin (de) f
• Greek: απατεώνας (el) m (apateónas)

  Ancient: φέναξ m (phénax)

• Hungarian: szélhámos (hu), csaló (hu)
• Indonesian: penipu (id)
• Italian: defraudatore m, ingannatore (it) m, millantatore (it) m, abbindolatore (it) m, mistificatore (it) m, imbonitore (it) m
• Japanese: 詐欺師 (ja) (さぎし, sagishi)
• Khmer: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: fraudātor m
• Lingala: bacheque
• Macedonian: хохштаплер m (hohštapler)
• Portuguese: trapaceiro (pt), vigarista (pt)
• Russian: моше́нник (ru) m (mošénnik), моше́нница (ru) f (mošénnica), жу́лик (ru) m (žúlik), афери́ст (ru) m (aferíst), афери́стка (ru) f (aferístka)
• Sicilian: ciraulu (scn) m, mprugghiuni m, mprusaturi m
• Spanish: estafador (es) m, engañabobos (es), trilero m
• Swedish: svindlare (sv) c
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: dolandırıcı (tr)

Anagrams

• Nostratic, narcotist, tacitrons, tractions, transotic