fraudulence

English

WOTD – 29 April 2018

Etymology

A police mugshot of the American former financier and investment advisor Bernard “Bernie” Madoff taken in March 2009. Madoff was involved in serious fraudulence, and was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme considered to be the largest financial fraud in United States history.

From Old French fraudulence, from Latin fraudulentia (“deceitfulness, disposition to defraud; fraudulence”), from fraudulentus (“deceitful, fraudulent”) + -ia (suffix forming abstract nouns). Fraudulentus is derived from fraus (“deceit, fraud”) (from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrew- (“to mislead”)) + -ulentus (“abounding in, full of”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɔː.djʊ.l(ə)ns/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɔ.d͡ʒə.ləns/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fraud‧u‧lence

Noun

fraudulence (countable and uncountable, plural fraudulences)

1. The condition of being fraudulent; deceitfulness.
   • 1759 May 5, Samuel Johnson, “[The Idler]”, in The Universal Chronicle, or, Weekly Gazette, number 55, [London]: [J. Payne], →OCLC; republished in The Works of Samuel Johnson, new edition, volume VII, London: Printed for T[homas] Longman et al., 1796, page 223:

     I ſuppoſe ſome of my friends, to whom I read the firſt part, gave notice of my deſign, and, perhaps, ſold the treacherous intelligence at a higher price than the fraudulence of trade will now allow me for my book.

   • 2012 January 7, B. R. Myers, “Dynasty, North Korean-style”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 8 January 2012:

     We should therefore not make too much of the fraudulence of all that on-screen wailing. Just because North Korean TV never films anything before rehearsing all spontaneity out of it does not mean the average citizen was unmoved.

   • 2015, Elizabeth Hass, Terry Christensen, Peter J. Haas, Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 280:

     Among other fraudulences, Enron perfected the art of “mark to market” accounting, tagging mere estimates of future profits as actual on-the-books assets.

Synonyms

• fraudulency

Related terms

• defraud
• defrauder
• defrauding (noun)
• fraud
• fraudster
• fraudulent
• fraudulently

 

Translations

condition of being fraudulent

• Bulgarian: измамничество (izmamničestvo), мошеничество (bg) (mošeničestvo)
• Catalan: fraudulència f
• Czech: podvodnost f
• Dutch: bedrog (nl) n
• French: fraude (fr) f
• Galician: fraudulencia f
• German: Betrügerei (de) f
• Icelandic: sviksemi f, prettvísi f
• Italian: fraudolenza f
• Maori: hoko tāhae
• Portuguese: fraudulência f
• Romanian: înșelătorie (ro) f
• Spanish: fraudulencia f
• Swedish: bedräglighet (sv)

Further reading

• fraud on Wikipedia.Wikipedia