Definition of defraud in English:

verb

• Illegally obtain money from (someone) by deception.

  ‘he used a second identity to defraud the bank of thousands of pounds’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Five men deny conspiracy to defraud their customers and the public between August 1995 and March 2001.’
  • ‘There is no offence of deceiving a machine, but there may be a conspiracy to defraud a machine's owner.’
  • ‘This 10 year old scam has defrauded folks out of tens of millions of dollars.’
  • ‘Their goal is identity theft, and to defraud the person who has become infected with the virus.’
  • ‘Some claim that he was defrauded of a large sum of money because of his naiveté.’
  • ‘The fraudsters do not have to intend to defraud the victim as the primary purpose of the exercise.’
  • ‘Of course, a fraud may have more than one object; you can defraud two people.’
  • ‘So he wasn't really defrauding his master, just protecting himself.’
  • ‘He spent five years in prison for allegedly defrauding his followers of about $158 million.’
  • ‘But the circumstances surrounding the case clearly showed that brokerage firms were not defrauding anyone.’
  • ‘She was upset at the Bank which she thought was defrauding her.’
  • ‘They are schemes that are designed with the intention not of doing a real transaction but of defrauding the people who invest in them.’
  • ‘We were defrauded and suffered from malfeasance and abuse.’
  • ‘In 2000 a dot-com executive defrauded me of $2,000 in article fees for the same reason.’
  • ‘If an American is defrauded, the U.S. company that farmed out the work is legally responsible.’
  • ‘It is not that he was trying to defraud anyone, it is just that he was a poor businessman and was always spending more money than he had.’
  • ‘Two builders have been jailed for trying to defraud a pensioner of £3,000.’
  • ‘Five men were charged with conspiracy to defraud bookmakers.’
  • ‘Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money may have been defrauded from an adult education scheme, a spending watchdog has found.’
  • ‘Social Welfare Minister Dermot Ahern said the figures showed people who abused the system were also defrauding taxpayers of money.’

  Synonyms

  swindle, cheat, rob, deceive, dupe, hoodwink, double-cross, fool, trick

  View synonyms