Fraudulence

//ˈfɹɔː.djʊ.l(ə)ns// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The condition of being fraudulent; deceitfulness. countable, uncountable

    "I ſuppoſe ſome of my friends, to whom I read the firſt part, gave notice of my deſign, and, perhaps, ſold the treacherous intelligence at a higher price than the fraudulence of trade will now allow me for my book."

  2. 2
    something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage wordnet
  3. 3
    the quality of being fraudulent wordnet
  4. 4
    a fraudulent or duplicitous representation wordnet

Example

More examples

"I ſuppoſe ſome of my friends, to whom I read the firſt part, gave notice of my deſign, and, perhaps, ſold the treacherous intelligence at a higher price than the fraudulence of trade will now allow me for my book."

Etymology

From Old French fraudulence, from Latin fraudulentia (“deceitfulness, disposition to defraud; fraudulence”), from fraudulentus (“deceitful, fraudulent”) + -ia (suffix forming abstract nouns). Fraudulentus is derived from fraus (“deceit, fraud”) (from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrew- (“to mislead”)) + -ulentus (“abounding in, full of”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.