Word.ws English Dictionary

shlenter

shlenter noun: a fake, especially a fake diamond.

Noun

shlenter (plural shlenters)

  1. A fake, especially a fake diamond.
  2. A scam, ploy, fraud, trick.
    • I did a shlenter. I went up to the girl while she was opening the gate and asked her to leave it open.2010, Peter Taylor, “Trip to Appelboskraal via Stadsaal”, in South African Trips
  3. A scammer.

Verb

shlenter (third-person singular simple present shlenters, present participle shlentering, simple past and past participle shlentered)

  1. (rare, transitive) To acquire in an underhanded way.
  2. (rare, transitive) To scam, fool, deceive, trick.
    • In the time I spend at Rhodes I will encounter many brilliant minds and come to understand principles, strategies and tactics, caucusing, shlentering, back-stabbing, manipulation, campaigning, alliances – and I will also witness the depths of human determination and depravity, and the utter...2016, Bridget Hilton-Barber, Student Comrade Prisoner Spy: A memoir

Adjective

shlenter (not comparable)

  1. Fake, not genuine, counterfeit.
    • There was a good deal of talk on the about about certain racing men last evening publicly taking "shlenter" wages …1881 February 28, “Dunedin Races. Third Day.”, in North Otago Times, NZ, volume XXVIII, number 2713, page 2
    • "Of course," whispers the seller, who had pushed his way to the side of the buyer, "this sale was only shlenter."1899, Anna Dunphy Bremont, The Gentleman Digger

Forms of shlenter

Noun
pluralshlenters
alternative formschlenter
alternative formslenter
Verb
third-person singular presentshlenters
present participleshlentering
past participleshlentered
pastshlentered

Origin of shlenter

From Afrikaans slenter (“ploy, scam, stroll, saunter”).

Questions about shlenter

What does shlenter mean?
Shlenter means a fake, especially a fake diamond.
What part of speech is shlenter?
Shlenter can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
What is the plural of shlenter?
The plural of shlenter is shlenters.

Words near shlenter in the dictionary

  1. shlemiehls
  2. shlemiel
  3. shlemiels
  4. shlemozzle
  5. shlemozzles
  6. shlenter
  7. shlentered
  8. shlentering
  9. shlenters
  10. shlep
  11. shlepp

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shlenter (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.

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