Definition of "fraud"

fraud

/fɹɔːd/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural frauds
1. (law) The crime of stealing or otherwise illegally obtaining money by use of deception tactics.
2. Any act of deception carried out for the purpose of unfair, undeserved and/or unlawful gain.
  Quotations
  When success a lover's toil attends, / Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends.
  1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], canto II
  But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts.
  2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎
3. The assumption of a false identity to such deceptive end.
4. A person who performs any such trick.
5. (obsolete) A trap or snare.
  Quotations
  to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud
  1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […]
verb
third-person singular simple present frauds, present participle frauding, simple past and past participle frauded
1. (obsolete) To defraud