bilk

Definition

(verb) To cheat or defraud someone of money or possessions; to obtain something by deceit or to evade payment.

Example

The contractor bilked dozens of elderly homeowners out of their savings before investigators finally caught up with him.

Word Origin

From 17th century English, though its precise origins remain disputed — which feels appropriate for a word meaning to cheat. It appears in cribbage terminology as early as the 1670s, where to “bilk” meant to spoil your opponent’s score. Some etymologists connect it to a dialectal variant of balk — to stop short or frustrate — while others suggest it developed independently in the criminal slang of Restoration-era London. By the 18th century it had fully settled into its modern meaning of fraud and evasion.