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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

grifter.

A con artist; someone who pulls confidence games; a swindler, scammer, huckster, hustler, and/or charlatan.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɡɹɪftɚ/General-American/ˈɡɹɪftə/Australia, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A con artist; someone who pulls confidence games; a swindler, scammer, huckster, hustler, and/or charlatan.

    US · informal
  2. A manipulator or otherwise generally corrupt person who "games" a system, group of people, or other entity for selfish gains; especially of a political "sell-out" perceived as lacking integrity.

    Internet · colloquial · especially
  3. A YouTuber or other content creator who produces low-effort content critiquing a particular franchise or trend, particularly content perceived as ragebait or done for monetary gain.

    Internet · derogatory
Where this word comes from

From grift + -er; or probably an alteration of grafter (“a corrupt person, one who accepts bribes”), which is essentially a doublet of the same word. Originally circus slang (carny; compare shill of similar semantics), gradually widened in sense. First attested in 1906; popularized online circa late 2010s.

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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.