Grift

 WORD OF THE DAY

grift / verb / GRIFT

Definition
1: to obtain (money or property) illicitly (as in a confidence game)
2: to acquire money or property illicitly

Examples
"The lovelorn were grifted out of $547 million by dating-app scammers last year, a shocking 78% increase over the previous record $307 million in losses in 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission."
— Kerry J. Byrne, The New York Post, 13 Feb. 2022

Anna Sorokin, who posed as a German heiress named Anna Delvey to grift her way into a luxurious Manhattan lifestyle, has been released from prison this week after years of backlash for her famous SoHo scam.
— Erin Corbett, refinery29.com, 14 Feb. 2021

Did You Know?
A grifter might be a pickpocket, a crooked gambler, scammer, or a confidence man.
Grift may have come from graft, a slightly older word meaning "to acquire dishonestly."