Meaning of gazump | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To swindle; to extort.
   British
2. To raise the selling price of something (especially property) after previously agreeing to a lower one.
   Australia, British
3. To buy a property by bidding more than the price of an existing, accepted offer.
   Australia, British
4. To trump or preempt; to reap the benefit underhandedly from a situation that someone else has worked to create.
   Australia, British

Examples

“If one believes that morality plays no part in such a transaction, and that the law is all that prevails, then I believe society is the poorer. Clearly no surveyor refuses to act for a client who gazumps — but while the practice is legal it can hardly be described as moral, and the position of the surveyor is far from clear.”

“During the early 1970s however in a period of rapidly increasing house prices it came to appear unfavourable to buyers since it allowed the seller to ‘gazump’, that is to refuse to sign the formal contract unless the buyer would agree to an increased price.”

“I can disclose that Mrs Blair had an offer of £2,765,000 accepted on a five-storey Georgian house in a fashionable area of central London, which she planned to give to daughter Kathryn.¶ However, actress Talulah Riley, 31, who played spoiled Annabelle Fritton in two St Trinian’s films, gazumped her with an offer of £3 million — a staggering £235,000 more than the asking price.”

“We are first-time buyers going through the process of buying our first home in London. We had previously tried three years ago and were gazumped twice. We lost nearly £4,000 to surveyors and solicitors with no property to show for it at the end.”

“Birmingham's teen sensation Jude Bellingham is nearing a move to Borussia Dortmund, according to reports in Germany.¶ Manchester United and Chelsea have been strongly linked with the 16-year-old but are set to be gazumped by the Bundesliga giants.”

“The tactic was to gazump the Labour Party and the FOL by a major restructuring of the tax system.”

“Just as Whymper effectively gazumps Mr Stone in taking credit for the Knights Companion scheme for ambitious ends, so too does this dangerous, multicultural, overcrowded version of London seem to be displacing the colonial fantasy of England by the novel's conclusion.”

“Fianna Fáil lost the 1948 general election to Fine Gael (as Cumann na Gael were now known), who proceeded to gazump the Republican credentials by leaving the British Commonwealth and officially declaring the Free State a republic.”

CEFR level