scam
/ˈskæm/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/ˈskam/
scam noun: a fraudulent or dishonest deal. A swindle.
Noun
scam (plural scams)
- A fraudulent or dishonest deal. A swindle.
- That marketing scheme looks like a scam to me.
- a scam catches most people with any sense of compassion
- Synonyms:
- deception, imposition, hype, deceit, dupery, fiddle, fetch, hocus-pocus, jugglery, legerdemain
- Something that is promoted using scams.
- That new diet burger is a scam.
Verb
scam (third-person singular simple present scams, present participle scamming, simple past and past participle scammed)
- To defraud or embezzle.
- They tried to scam her out of her savings.
- Synonyms:
- con
- To seek out a partner for casual sex; to hit on.
- His friend nudged me. "It's true. JJ only scams black ladies." / "You don't say?" / "J-boy scammed a real live Miss Black Universe once. Met her in a disco down in Honduras. Wearing her title. Since then he's been obsessed."2005, Robert Antoni, Carnival, New York, N.Y.: Black Cat, →ISBN, page 54
scam meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
scam in Hindi
- scam, fraud
- घोटाला ghoṭālā
scam in Marathi
- घोटाळा
scam in Urdu
- a scam, swindle
- چونا cūnā
scam in Bengali
- fraudulent deal
- ছলনা cholna
More languagesFewer languages
- scam in Telugu
- కుంభకోణం, స్కామ్
- scam in Malayalam
- തട്ടിപ്പ്, വെട്ടിപ്പ്, അഴിമതി, തട്ടിപ്പുകേസ്
- scam in Kannada
- ಹಗರಣ
- scam in Punjabi
- ਸਕੈਮ sakaim
- scam in Gujarati
- કૌભાંડ
- scam in Nepali
- घोटाला, घोटालाको, स्क्याम गर्न
- scam in Arabic
- اِحْتِيَال iḥtiyāl, اِحْتَالَ iḥtāla
- scam in Indonesian
- scam
- scam in Vietnamese
- trò lừa đảo, lừa đảo
Examples of scam in a sentence
- Even savvy Internet users have fallen victim to the ubiquitous Nigerian scam.
- He listened to the salesman's pitch warily, sensing a potential scam.
- The lies had become a hall of mirrors by the time the scam was exposed.
Synonyms of scam
11 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of scam
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | scams |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | scams |
| present participle | scamming |
| past participle | scammed |
| past | scammed |
Origin of scam
US American carnival slang of uncertain origin. Possibly from scamp (“swindler, cheater”) or Irish cam (“crooked”). Also possibly from Danish skam; if so, it would be a doublet of shame and sham. First use appears c. 1963 in the periodical Time. The word became common use among the US drug culture when in early 1980, after Operation ABSCAM, an FBI sting operation directed at public officials, became public.
Words formed from scam
- 419 scam
- advance fee scam
- antiscam
- cyberscam
- exit scam
- love scam
- Macau scam
- Nigerian prince scam
- Nigerian scam
- ponzi scam
- romance scam
- safe account scam
- scam artist
- scam artistry
- scambait
- scambaiter
- scambaiting
- scambot
- scamcoin
- scamdemic
- scammer
- scammish
- scammy
- scamster
- scamware
- Ukroscam
- Uncle Scam
- what's the scam
- outscam
- scammable
- scammee
Phrases with scam
Words that rhyme with scam
47 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about scam
- What does scam mean?
- Scam means a fraudulent or dishonest deal. A swindle.
- What is scam in Hindi?
- Scam in Hindi is घोटाला (ghoṭālā). See Scam meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is scam?
- Scam can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce scam?
- Scam is pronounced /ˈskæm/ (UK).
- What is the plural of scam?
- The plural of scam is scams.
Words near scam in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scam (page history and authors); घोटाला (Hindi) (page history and authors); scam (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); چونا (Urdu) (page history and authors); scam (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); scam (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); scam (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scam (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); scam (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-scam.wav.
Cite this entry: “scam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.