Fraud sb.

Forms: 4–6 fraude, frawd(e, 4– fraud. [a. OF. fraude, ad. L. fraude-m (fraus) deceit, injury.]

  1.  The quality or disposition of being deceitful; faithlessness, insincerity. Now rare.

a. 1400[?].  Morte Arth., 3919. Alle for falsede, and frawde.

c. 1430.  Lydg., Min. Poems, 162. Fle doubilnesse, fraud, and collusioun.

1508.  Dunbar, Tua Mariit Wemen, 255. I semyt sober, and sueit, et sempill without fraud.

1599.  Shaks., Much Ado, II. iii. 74.

1672.  Marvell, Corr., Wks. 1872–5, II. 408. I do not believe there is any fraud in him.

1718.  Hickes & Nelson, J. Kettlewell, II. xxvi. 128. William Rawlins, a Person of Simplicity without Fraud, of Honesty without Guile.

1827.  Macaulay, Machiav., Ess. (1854), 36. Through the greater part of Europe, the vices which peculiarly belong to timid dispositions, and which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable.

  personified.

1606.  Dekker, Sev. Sinnes, II. (Arb.), 21. Frawd (with two faces) is his Daughter, a very monster.

1790.  Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 88. The discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud, and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire.

  2.  Criminal deception; the using of false representations to obtain an unjust advantage or to injure the rights or interests of another.

c. 1330.  R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 128.

1382.  Wyclif, Mark x. 19. Thou hast knowen the comaundementis, do thou non auoutrie, sle not, stele not, seie not fals witnessinge, do no fraude, worschipe thi fadir and modir.

1570.  B. Googe, Pop. Kingd., I. (1880), 7.

1667.  Milton, P. L., I. 646.

1726–7.  Swift, Gulliver, I. vi. 67. They look upon Fraud as a greater Crime than Theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with Death.

1829.  Lytton, Devereux, III. iii. Fraud has been practised, how I know not! by whom I do know!

  b.  in Law. In fraud of, to the fraud of: so as to defraud; also, to the detriment or hindrance of.

[1278.  Stat. Glouc. 6 Edw. I., c. 11. Ou par collusiun ou par fraude pur fere le termer perdre sun terme.

1292.  Britton, I. ii. § 11. Ne nule manere de fraude.]

1590.  Swinburne, Testaments, 151. The condition is reiected, as being made in fraude of mariage.

1596.  Spenser, State Irel. Wks. (Globe), 622/2. The same Statutes are soe slacklye penned (besides the later of them is soe unsensibly contryved that it scarce carryeth any reason in it) that they are often and very easely wrested to the fraud of the subject.

1845.  Stephen, Comm. Laws Eng. (1874), II. 268. Provided always, that she shall not have used his monies without his consent, and shall not have deposited or invested in fraud of his creditors.

1848.  Wharton, Law Lex., Fraud, all deceitful practices in defrauding or endeavouring to defraud another of his known right, by means of some artful device, contrary to the plain rule of common honesty.

  3.  An act or instance of deception, an artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured, a dishonest trick or stratagem.

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Boeth., I. pr. iv. 9 (Camb. MS.). The iustice Regal hadde whilom demed hem bothe to gon into exil for hir trecheryes and fraudes withouten nombre.

c. 1440.  York Myst., xxxiii. 131. If ȝe feyne slike frawdis, I sall felle ȝou.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 10 b. Moo than a thousande wayes be hath by his craftly fraudes to deceyue man.

1691.  Hartcliffe, Virtues, 317. They [Pharisees] only made great shews of Piety, to cover their Frauds and Rapines.

1751.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 126, 1 June, ¶ 4. The same restraint which would hinder a man from declaiming against the frauds of any employment among those who profess it, should with-hold him from treating fear with contempt among human beings.

1836.  J. Gilbert, Chr. Atonem., iii. (1852), 72. The inconsistency as well as the fraud of imputing guilt to a known innocent being, none are so stupid as not to allow.

1852.  Miss Yonge, Cameos, II. xxix. 312. Most of the Dauphin’s followers gloried in their successful fraud and murder.

  b.  in Law. Statute of Frauds: the statute 29 Chas. II., c. 3, by which written memoranda were in many cases required to give validity to a contract.

1678.  Act 29 Chas. II., c. 3, title. An Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries.

1763.  Blackstone, Comm., I. 362. The frauds, naturally consequent upon this provision, which gave a settlement by so short a residence, produced [etc.].

1827.  Jarman, Powell’s Devises, II. 29. These cases all proceed upon the ground of fraud, which prevents the statute of Frauds from being a bar.

1858.  Ld. St. Leonards, Handy-bk. Prop. Law, vii. 38. An instance of what is deemed a sufficient fraud to enable equity to relieve.

  c.  Pious fraud: a deception practised for the furtherance of what is considered a good object; esp. for the advancement of religion.

[1563–87.  Foxe, A. & M. (1684), III. 898. Their accustomed lies, which they term Fraudes pieuses, pious beguilings.]

1678.  Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 319. There is too much cause to suspect that there have been some Pious Frauds practised upon these Trismegistick Writings.

1712.  Addison, Spect., No. 419, 1 July, ¶ 5. The Darkness and Superstition of later Ages, when pious Frauds were made use of to amuse Mankind, and frighten them into a Sense of their Duty.

1855.  Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), II. III. vii. 143. With a sterner feeling of self-sacrifice, if it were not, indeed, despair which took the form of frenzy, he betrayed the pious fraud of a nurse, who had substituted her own child for the youngest of the Emperor.

  transf.  1869.  Lowell, Under the Willows, xxi.

  4.  A method or means of defrauding or deceiving; a fraudulent contrivance; in mod. colloq. use, a spurious or deceptive thing.

1658.  Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, iv. 35. Mourning without hope, they had an happy fraud against excessive lamentation, by a common opinion that deep sorrows disturbed their ghosts.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 574.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., IV. 597.

1782.  Cowper, Progr. Err., 17 Not all … Can … Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure.

1880.  McCarthy, Own Times, III. 5. So fraudful had his life been that many persons persisted in believing that his supposed suicide was but another fraud.

1890.  Lucy B. Walford, Mischief of Monica, i. The whole place is a fraud…. We can’t live in a villa.

  b.  colloq. of a person: One who is not what he appears to be; an impostor, a humbug; spec. U.S. (see quot. 1895).

1850.  Dickens, Reprinted Pieces (1866), 120. He [the begging-letter writer] is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions of this time.

1885.  F. B. Van Vorst, Without a Compass, 12. I had called him an old fraud, because I thought he had shown favoritism.

1895.  Standard Dict., Fraud … specifically, in the postal service, a person, firm, or corporation declared by the Postmaster-general, under authority of law, to be engaged in obtaining money by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, and therefore debarred from obtaining payment of money-orders or the delivery of registered letters.

  † 5.  By Milton used in passive sense (as L. fraus): State of being defrauded or deluded.

1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 643.

  6.  Comb., as † fraud-doing vbl. sb.; † fraud-wanting adj.

1382.  Wyclif, Dan. xi. 21. He shal cum priuely, and shal weelde the rewme in fraude doynge.

1600.  Nashe, Summer’s Last Will, F 4.