cheat

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb
  1. To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
  2. 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.
  3. To avoid a seemingly inevitable thing.
  4. To deceive; to fool; to trick.
  5. To disregard self-imposed restrictions or commitments in favour of resting or indulging oneself.
noun
  1. An act of deception or fraud; that which is the means of fraud or deception.
  2. Someone who cheats.
  3. The weed cheatgrass.
  4. A card game where the goal is to have no cards remaining in a hand, often by telling lies.
  5. A hidden means of gaining an unfair advantage in a video game, often by entering a cheat code.
noun
  1. A sort of low-quality bread.

Pronunciation

/ˈt͡ʃiːt/ [ˈt͡ʃʰɪi̯t] en-us-cheat.ogg LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cheat.wav

Word forms

cheat cheats cheating cheated

Etymology

Verb from Middle English achetan, variant of escheten, from Old French escheat, past participle of escheoir, escheoiter, from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- + cadere (“fall”). Displaced native Old English beswīcan. Noun from verb and/or Middle English chete, aphetic form of achete, escheat, eschete (“the reversion of property to the state”), from Anglo-Norman eschete and Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), past participle of escheoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- + cadere (“fall”). Doublet of escheat.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.