subs. (old).—A cheat; a rogue: spec. one who employs petty or mean artifices, legal or illegal, for defrauding others. Hence SWINDLE, subs. = a fraud, a deception, an imposition; and SWINDLE, verb = to cheat, to defraud. Whence, also, derivatives such as SWINDLEABLE, SWINDLERY, SWINDLING, etc. [Orig. used of German Jews who settled in London, circa 1762. Also by soldiers in the Seven Years’ War.]—GROSE and BEE.
1776. FOOTE, The Capuchin, ii. After that you turned SWINDLER, and got out of gaol by an act for the relief of insolvent debtors.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. SWINDLER … used to signify Cheats of every kind.
1785–6. VARENNE [CARLYLE, The Diamond Necklace, xvi., quoted in note 9]. ‘Lamotte … under pretext of finding a treasure … had SWINDLED one of them out of 300 livres.’
1837. CARLYLE, The French Revolution, II. vi. SWINDLERY and blackguardism.
1849. MACAULAY, The History of England, ii. Bedloe, a noted SWINDLER, followed.
1866. W. D. HOWELLS, Venetian Life, i. Let us take, for example, that pathetic SWINDLE, the Bridge of Sighs.
d. 1876. M. COLLINS, Thoughts in my Garden, i. 283. I look easily SWINDLEABLE.
1882. H. WEDGWOOD, A Dictionary of English Etymology, s.v. SWINDLE. In a figurative sense [the German] schwindel is applied to dealings in which the parties seem to have lost their head, as we say, to have become dizzy over unfounded or unreasonable prospects of gain…. The word may be translated madness, delusion. Then, in a factitive sense schwindeler, one who induces delusions in others. Einem etwas abschwindeln, to get something out of another by inducing delusion; to SWINDLE him out of something.
