Meaning of grifter | Babel Free

Definitions

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

Equivalents

Examples

“We're all grifters. So we sell each other out for a nickel.”

“That was the train the drunks and the sinners rode—the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew.”

“From the small-time grifters like Anna Sorokin, who adopted the last name Delvey to masquerade in downtown New York circles as a European heiress for four years before she was convicted of second-degree grand larceny in 2019, […] all impostors come equipped with a tall tale and a look to match.”

“The latest act in the Madness of King Donald drama playing globally on every channel underlined the increasingly delusional world the anti-hero inhabits, his fantasies fed and indulged by a cast of sycophants, lackeys and straight grifters, all in it for what they can get.”

CEFR level