Nuts and Bolts: international cheating.

 I'm still thinking about the word defraud. The word is Anglo-French, which means it came into English after England was invaded by the Normans in 1066.

But we don't just defraud people in England; we also swindle, cheat, deceive, dupe and double-cross them.

Where have all those words come from?

Well, the word swindle arrived in the 1700s from the German Schwindler, from the Old High German swintan, to disappear. Cheat is short for escheat (now a term for a legal way of being able to take someone else's land). Escheat originated in the 1300s, and comes from the Old French eschete, from escheoir, to fall to the lot of, from the Latin cadere, to fall. Deceive comes from the Old French deceivre, from the Latin capere, to take. Dupe also comes from the Old French, from de huppe, which means [of] a hoopoe:

photo by Africa Safari IN

 from the Latin upupa, because of the bird's reputation for great stupidity. Double-cross....well, the double bit comes from the Old French, from the Latin duplus, which means two-fold (as does the word duplicity), and cross comes from Old Irish, from the Latin crux, which means cross.

As you'll have noticed, not one of these words originates in England.

Does this mean that the English are a fine honest bunch?

Or that they're the most cunning people of all?