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 (“suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘abounding in, full of’”).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɔː.djʊ.l(ə)ns/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɔ.d͡ʒə.ləns/
Audio (AU) (file)
Hyphenation: fraud‧u‧lence

Noun

fraudulence (countable and uncountable, plural fraudulences)

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 227177828; republished in The Works of Samuel Johnson, volume VII, new edition, 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, 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)