hoax.
To deceive (someone) by making them believe something that has been maliciously or mischievously fabricated.
Meaning & usage
To deceive (someone) by making them believe something that has been maliciously or mischievously fabricated.
Where this word comes from
Reportedly a form of hocus. Possibly from hocus-pocus or Latin iocus (“joke”). Compare hokey.
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.
The news story about the pop singer coming to town, unfortunately for his fans, turned out to be a hoax.
Where this word comes from
Reportedly a form of hocus. Possibly from hocus-pocus or Latin iocus (“joke”). Compare hokey.
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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.