cheat.
To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
Meaning & usage
To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
My brother flunked biology because he cheated on his mid-term.
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.
My husband cheated on me with his secretary.
After he found out his wife cheated, he left her.
To avoid a seemingly inevitable thing.
He cheated death when his car collided with a moving train.
I feel as if I've cheated fate.
To deceive; to fool; to trick.
My ex-wife cheated me out of $40,000.
He cheated his way into office.
To disregard self-imposed restrictions or commitments in favour of resting or indulging oneself.
Where this word comes from
Verb from Middle English achetan, variant of escheten, from Old French escheat, past participle of escheoir, escheoiter, from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- + cadere (“fall”). Displaced native Old English beswīcan. Noun from verb and/or Middle English chete, aphetic form of achete, escheat, eschete (“the reversion of property to the state”), from Anglo-Norman eschete and Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), past participle of escheoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- + cadere (“fall”). Doublet of escheat.
An act of deception or fraud; that which is the means of fraud or deception.
Someone who cheats.
The weed cheatgrass.
Synonym of bullshit (“a card game where the goal is to have no cards remaining in a hand, often by telling lies”).
A hidden means of gaining an unfair advantage in a video game, often by entering a cheat code.
Where this word comes from
Verb from Middle English achetan, variant of escheten, from Old French escheat, past participle of escheoir, escheoiter, from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- + cadere (“fall”). Displaced native Old English beswīcan. Noun from verb and/or Middle English chete, aphetic form of achete, escheat, eschete (“the reversion of property to the state”), from Anglo-Norman eschete and Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), past participle of escheoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from Late Latin *excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from (Latin) ex- + cadere (“fall”). Doublet of escheat.
A sort of low-quality bread.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English chet (“low-quality bread”), of unknown origin; compare manchet.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.