cheat
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To violate rules to gain, or try to gain, advantage from a situation.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
cheetIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃit
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Be sexually unfaithful to one's partner in marriage
intransitive
To be unfaithful to one's spouse or partner; to commit adultery, or to engage in sexual or romantic conduct with a person other than one's partner in contravention of the rules of society or agreement in the relationship.
intransitive
To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
transitive
To deceive; to fool; to trick.
transitive
To avoid a seemingly inevitable thing.
informalintransitive
To disregard self-imposed restrictions or commitments in favour of resting or indulging oneself.
noun
countable
Someone who cheats.
countable
An act of deception or fraud; that which is the means of fraud or deception.
Weedy annual native to Europe but widely distributed as a weed especially in wheat
Someone who leads you to believe something that is not true
uncountable
The weed cheatgrass.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
Used this way, cheat is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A deception for profit to yourself.
Someone who leads you to believe something that is not true.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Be sexually unfaithful to one's partner in marriage.
Annual or winter annual grass with softly hairy leaves of the Mediterranean.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.