Fraudulent

a. Also 5–6 -elent. [a. OF. fraudulent, ad. L. fraudulent-us, f. fraud-: see FRAUD sb. and -ULENT.]

  1.  Guilty of or addicted to fraud; that wrongs another person by false representations; cheating, deceitful, dishonest.

c. 1430.  Lydg., Min. Poems, 197.

1474.  Caxton, Chesse, 96. He that had be a theef fraudelent was maad afterward a trewe procurour.

1509.  Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1874), II. 91. Agayne is the seruaunt fals and fraudelent.

a. 1631.  Donne, in Select. (1840), 204. Is God so likely to concur with the fraudulent, the deceitful man, as with the laborious, and religious?

1796.  Bp. Watson, Apol. Bible, 304. Productions appeared, which were imposed on the world by fraudulent men as the writings of the holy apostles.

1833.  Ht. Martineau, Berkeley the Banker, I. viii. 159–60. Notes usually circulate long before the holders wish for the gold they represent; so that fraudulent or careless issuers of convertible paper may have greatly exceeded safety in their issues before the public has warning to make its demand for gold.

1858.  Ld. St. Leonards, Handy-bk. Prop. Law, XXI. 163. Parliament has made fraudulent trustees answerable criminally for their acts.

  † b.  Of an animal: Crafty, deceitful. Obs.

1607.  Topsell, Serpents (1658), 676. A Chamaeleon is a fraudulent, ravening and gluttonous Beast.

  2.  Characterized by, or of the nature of, fraud; serving the purpose of, or accomplished by means of, fraud.

1412–20.  Lydgate, Chronicle of Troy, I. iii.

c. 1450.  Mirour Saluacioun, 2923. Abner of Joab was slayne be fraudulent dissymuiling.

1529.  More, Supplic. Soulys, Wks. 328/2. Their entent is fraudulent and false.

1571.  Act 13 Eliz., c. 5. Such guylefull covenous or fraudulent Devyses and Practyses.

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., I. iv. 15. Other waies there are of deceit; which consist not in false apprehension of Words, that is, Verbal expressions or sentential significations, but fraudulent deductions, or inconsequent illations, from a false conception of things.

1771.  Junius Lett., li. 262. I cannot so readily approve Mr. Wilkes, or commend him for making patriotism a trade, and a fraudulent trade.

1833.  J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, II. 288. The detection of a fraudulent balance of this description, than which nothing is more easy, depends on the fact, that if two weights produce equilibrium when placed in the dishes, the equilibrium will be destroyed if they are transposed.

1891.  Law Times, XC. 25 April, 460/2. The plaintiff might indeed have been induced by a fraudulent prospectus to make contracts whereby he was damnified.

1893.  Sir J. W. Chitty, in Law Times Rep., LXVIII. 3 June, 429/1. The case set up is one, not of innocent misrepresentation, but of fraudulent misrepresentation.

  † 3.  Path. (After fraudulentus in the L. transl. of Avicenna). Deceptive. Obs.

1541.  R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg., T j. The woundes are somtyme composed with vnnatural mater, somtyme with losse of substaunce, somtyme vyrulent & fraudelent venymous fylthynes [cum vlceribus sordidis putrefactis & fraudulentis].

1588.  J. Read, Compend. Method, 101. This auaileth against the Cancer in the mouth, and in the fundament, in the matrix, and to all cancrouse and fradulent [sic] vlcers of the legges.

1615.  Crooke, Body of Man, 30. These are ψευδοπνεύματα, Bastard, or as Auicen termeth them Fraudulent spirits, whose violence is sometimes so great & furious, that they are the cause of many tumults in the houshold gouernement, or naturall constitution of the body.

  † 4.  used as sb. A fraudulent bankrupt. Obs.

1796.  Mod. Gulliver’s Trav., 151.