Other forms: cheaters
A cheater is somebody who breaks the rules to win. Catch a cheater, a known cheater, cheaters never prosper.
In British English the ordinary word is cheat, and cheater sounds American — cheaters never prosper is an American proverb. In online gaming, cheater is the standard term for somebody using unauthorised software, and anti-cheat systems are a whole branch of the industry. Note that in older English a cheater was an escheator, a royal official with such a reputation for fraud that the job title became the word for a swindler.
1nouncheaterSomebody who breaks the rules to win.
“The other kids called him a cheater because he peeked at their cards.”
cheater is a rule-breaker.
LL.
*excadēre — fall away, fall out
Old French
escheat
Middle English
achetan
English
cheat
English, today
cheater
Built from
From cheat + -er. The sense referring to welding hood lenses was inspired by cheaters (plural) as a pair of reading glasses. cheat Verb from Middle English achetan, variant of escheten, from Old French escheat, past participle of escheoir, escheoiter, from LL. excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from ex- + cadere. Displaced native beswīcan. Noun from verb and/or Middle English chete, aphetic form of achete, escheat, eschete (“the reversion of property to the state”), from Anglo-Norman eschete and Old French eschet, escheit, escheoit (“that which falls to one”), past participle of escheoir (“to fall”) (modern French échoir), from LL. excadēre (“fall away, fall out”), from ex- + cadere. a doublet of escheat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA