English
fraud
Fraud comes from Middle English fraude ‘deceptiveness, fraudulence’, and goes back to Latin fraus ‘deceit, injury, offence’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfraus1‘deceit’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400fraude1
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fraude1‘deceptiveness’
- Englishearliest quotation 1671fraud1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English fraud
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1671, John Milton, The First Book: “to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrausWiktionary, English fraud‘deceit’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400fraudeWiktionary, English fraud
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fraudeWiktionary, English fraud‘deceptiveness’
- Englishearliest quotation 1671fraudWiktionary, English fraud. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1671, John Milton, The First Book: “to draw the proud King Ahab into fraud”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with fraud, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ- ‘to deceive, mislead’
17 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
noun The crime of stealing or otherwise illegally obtaining money by use of deception tactics.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “fraud”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin fraus / fraud