fraudulence

A police mugshot of the American former financier and investment advisor Bernard “Bernie” Madoff taken in March 2009. Madoff was involved in serious fraudulence, and was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme considered to be the largest financial fraud in United States history.

From Old French fraudulence, from Latin fraudulentia (“deceitfulness, disposition to defraud; fraudulence”), from fraudulentus (“deceitful, fraudulent”) + -ia (“suffix forming abstract nouns”). Fraudulentus is derived from fraus (“deceit, fraud”) (from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrew- (“to mislead”)) + -ulentus (“suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘abounding in, full of’”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɔː.djʊ.l(ə)ns/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹɔ.dʒə.ləns/

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• Hyphenation: fraud‧u‧lence

fraudulence (countable and uncountable, plural fraudulences)

1. The condition of being fraudulent; deceitfulness.
   • 1759 May 5, Samuel Johnson, “[The Idler]”, in The Universal Chronicle, or, Weekly Gazette, number 55, [London: J. Payne], OCLC 227177828; republished in The Works of Samuel Johson, volume VII, new edition, London: Printed for T[homas] Longman et al., 1796, page 223:

     I ſuppoſe ſome of my friends, to whom I read the firſt part, gave notice of my deſign, and, perhaps, ſold the treacherous intelligence at a higher price than the fraudulence of trade will now allow me for my book.

   • 2012 January 7, B. R. Myers, “Dynasty, North Korean-style”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 8 January 2012:

     We should therefore not make too much of the fraudulence of all that on-screen wailing. Just because North Korean TV never films anything before rehearsing all spontaneity out of it does not mean the average citizen was unmoved.

   • 2015, Elizabeth Hass; Terry Christensen; Peter J. Haas, Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 280:

     Among other fraudulences, Enron perfected the art of “mark to market” accounting, tagging mere estimates of future profits as actual on-the-books assets.

• fraudulency

• fraud on Wikipedia.Wikipedia