noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Anything deliberately intended to deceive or trick.

   "The phone call to the police about a tiger in a tree turned out to be a hoax."

2. 2
   something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage wordnet

Verb

1. 1
   To deceive (someone) by making them believe something that has been maliciously or mischievously fabricated. transitive
2. 2
   subject to a playful hoax or joke wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

foolfraudalternative factbalderdashballoon juicebamboozle

Example

More examples

"Is the Loch Ness monster real or is it just an elaborate hoax?"

Etymology

Reportedly a form of hocus. Possibly from hocus-pocus or Latin iocus (“joke”). Compare hokey.

Related phrases

climate hoaxglobal hoax

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