Word Direct Answers

What does "sham" mean?

Sham: A false front, or removable ornamental covering. Pillow sham, a covering to be laid on a pillow.

Additional senses

  1. 2.False; counterfeit; pretended; feigned; unreal; as, a sham fight. They scorned the sham independence proffered to them by the Athenians. Jowett (Thucyd)
  2. 3.To trick; to cheat; to deceive or delude with false pretenses. Fooled and shammed into a conviction. L'Estrange.
  3. 4.To obtrude by fraud or imposition. [R.] We must have a care that we do not . . . sham fallacies upon the world for current reason. L'Estrange.
  4. 5.To assume the manner and character of; to imitate; to ape; to feign. To sham Abram or Abraham, to feign sickness; to malinger. Hence a malingerer is called, in sailors' cant, Sham Abram, or Sham Abraham.
  5. 6.To make false pretenses; to deceive; to feign; to impose. Wondering . . . whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming. Macaulay.

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