flimflam
Definition
Noun: 1. A swindle; a confidence trick: A dishonest scheme or trick intended to deceive someone, often involving persuasion to part with money for something worthless or to participate in a rigged game. * The con artist's flimflam involved selling fake gold watches to tourists.
Verb (transitive): 1. To swindle; to deceive with a trick: To cheat or trick someone, especially out of money, through clever or elaborate deception. * He was flimflammed into investing his life savings in a fraudulent scheme.
Usage Examples
- Noun:
- The entire investment opportunity turned out to be an elaborate flimflam.
- She saw through his flimflam and refused to give him any money.
- Verb:
- The smooth-talking salesman tried to flimflam the elderly couple.
- Don't let them flimflam you with their too-good-to-be-true promises.
Advanced Usage
- The word often implies a sense of showmanship or elaborate presentation used to disguise the fraud. It is not typically used for simple, violent theft but for trickery that relies on persuasion.
- "Flimflam artist" or "flimflam man": A person who habitually carries out such swindles.
- The town was warned about a traveling flimflam artist selling miracle cures.
Variants and Related Words
- Flimflammery (noun): The practice of or an instance of swindling; deceptive nonsense.
- The politician's speech was full of empty flimflammery.
Synonyms
- Swindle (n/v): A fraudulent scheme or act.
- Con (n/v): A confidence trick.
- Hustle (n/v, informal): A fraud or swindle.
- Scam (n/v): A dishonest scheme.
- Hoax (n): A humorous or malicious deception.
- Bunco (n, chiefly US): A swindle or confidence game.
Related Idioms
- While not a phrasal verb, the term "flimflam" itself often functions idiomatically to describe the entire concept of a showy, deceptive trick.
- It was all just flimflam and mirrors, with no real substance behind the company's claims. (A play on the idiom "smoke and mirrors.")
Noun
-
a swindle in which you cheat at gambling or persuade a person to buy worthless property
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