con artist

See also: con-artist

English

Alternative forms

• con-artist

Etymology

Clipping of confidence artist.

Noun

con artist (plural con artists)

1. A person who uses confidence tricks to defraud or swindle people after first gaining their trust with a series of confidence games; a scam operator, confidence trickster.

   Synonyms: conman, con; see also Thesaurus:confidence trickster, Thesaurus:deceiver

   That greedy con artist would swindle you at any cost.

   • 2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC‎:

     He's the FBI agent antagonist in Catch Me If You Can (2002) opposite a buoyantly charming young Leonardo DiCaprio as con artist Frank Abagnale, but his character is more of a determined cat to Leo's mouse than a real foil; he's simply a prim Eisenhower-era man with a job to do.

   • 2021 February 23, Rafael Behr, “Brexit is a machine to generate perpetual grievance. It's doing its job perfectly”, in The Guardian‎:

     Leavers will be attracted to that story because it spares them the discomfort of admitting that they voted for a con, and then made a prime minister of the con artist.

Derived terms

• con artistry

Translations

scam operator, conman

Arabic: please add this translation if you can Armenian: please add this translation if you can Catalan: estafador m, estafa (ca) m or f Chinese: Mandarin: 騙子 / 骗子 (zh) (piànzi) Czech: podvodník (cs) m Danish: svindler (da) c Dutch: oplichter (nl) m, oplichtster (nl) f Esperanto: fripono (eo), trompisto Finnish: huijari (fi), petkuttaja (fi) French: escroc (fr) m or f, arnaqueur (fr) m, arnaqueuse (fr) f Galician: estafador m, argalleiro (gl) German: Abzocker (de) m, Scharlatan (de) m, Hochstapler (de) m, Trickbetrüger m, Trickbetrügerin f, Hochstapler (de) m, Hochstaplerin (de) f, Schwindler (de) m, Schwindlerin (de) f Greek: απατεώνας (el) m (apateónas) Ancient: φέναξ m (phénax) Hungarian: szélhámos (hu), csaló (hu) Indonesian: penipu (id) Italian: defraudatore m, ingannatore (it) m, millantatore (it) m, abbindolatore (it) m, mistificatore (it) m, imbonitore (it) m Japanese: 詐欺師 (ja) (さぎし, sagishi) Khmer: please add this translation if you can Latin: fraudātor m Lingala: bacheque Macedonian: хохштаплер m (hohštapler) Polish: hochsztapler (pl) m, hochsztaplerka f, naciągacz m, naciągaczka (pl) f Portuguese: trapaceiro (pt), vigarista (pt) Romanian: șarlatan (ro) m, escroc (ro) m Russian: моше́нник (ru) m (mošénnik), моше́нница (ru) f (mošénnica), жу́лик (ru) m (žúlik), афери́ст (ru) m (aferíst), афери́стка (ru) f (aferístka) Sicilian: ciraulu (scn) m, mprugghiuni m, mprusaturi m Spanish: estafador (es) m, engañabobos (es), trilero m, embaucador (es) m Swahili: tapeli (sw) Swedish: svindlare (sv) c Thai: please add this translation if you can Turkish: dolandırıcı (tr)

Anagrams

• Nostratic, narcotist, tacitrons, tractions, transotic