Word.ws English Dictionary

grift

/ɡɹɪft/

grift noun: a confidence game or swindle.

Noun

grift (plural grifts)

  1. (US, slang) A confidence game or swindle.
    • Hey, what's the grift? What are you trying to pull?
    • ‘Sounds like he’s trying to stretch out his grift for as long as possible,’ Gentle said. ‘Taking as much from his followers as he can before it falls apart.’2022, Paul McAuley, Beyond the Burn Line, Gollancz, page 172

Verb

grift (third-person singular simple present grifts, present participle grifting, simple past and past participle grifted)

  1. (US, slang, transitive) To obtain illegally, as by con game.
  2. (US, intransitive, slang) To obtain money illegally.
  3. (US, intransitive, slang) To obtain money immorally or through deceitful means.

grift meaning in Tamil and Urdu

grift in Tamil

ஏமாற்றி பணம் பறித்தல்

grift in Urdu

بےایمانی, دھوکا دہی, فریب, ٹھگی

Synonyms of grift

10 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of grift

Forms of grift

Noun
pluralgrifts
Verb
third-person singular presentgrifts
present participlegrifting
past participlegrifted
pastgrifted

Origin of grift

American criminal underworld slang, 1906 (noun), 1915 (verb), alteration of graft (“corruption, illicit profit through corrupt means, bribe, one's occupation”), alteration perhaps influenced by similar sounding words, e.g. drift, etc., probably ultimately from Middle Dutch graft (“digging, ditch, canal, trench”) (modern Dutch gracht), related to Dutch graven (“to dig”), English grave (“to dig”).

Words formed from grift

Words that rhyme with grift

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about grift

What does grift mean?
Grift means a confidence game or swindle.
What is grift in Tamil?
Grift in Tamil is ஏமாற்றி பணம் பறித்தல். See Grift meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is grift?
Grift can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce grift?
Grift is pronounced /ɡɹɪft/.
What is the plural of grift?
The plural of grift is grifts.

Words near grift in the dictionary

  1. grifon
  2. grifonin
  3. grifonins
  4. grifons
  5. grifs
  6. grift
  7. griftable
  8. grifted
  9. grifter
  10. grifterness
  11. grifters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grift (page history and authors); grift (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grift (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-grift.ogg.

Cite this entry: “grift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.