Other forms: forgeries
Forgery is the crime of making fake documents, money or signatures. Convicted of forgery, an obvious forgery, the painting was a forgery.
The word names both the crime and the object: this is a forgery. In art, forgeries are exposed by pigment analysis, provenance research and, increasingly, by the forger confessing — which is how several famous cases ended. Note counterfeit, which is used chiefly of money and goods; fake, which is the everyday word; and forger, the person, who is often more admired than the crime deserves.
1nounforgeryThe crime of making fake documents, money or signatures.
“He was convicted of forgery and served about two years.”
2nounobjectA fake object made to deceive.
“The painting was a forgery and hung there for forty years.”
forgery is a crime, or a fake.
Old French forgier means to forge metal, from Latin fabricare, to construct. Making a fake document and beating iron are the same verb, so a forgery is literally something manufactured.
Latin
fabricō — to frame, construct, fabricate
Old French
forgier
Anglo-Norman
forger
Middle English
forgen
English, today
forgery
Built from
Recorded since 1574; from forge + ery, from Middle English forgen, via Anglo-Norman forger, from Old French forgier, from Latin fabricō (“to frame, construct, fabricate”), itself from fabrica (“workshop; construction”), from faber (“workman, smith”). fake Compare typologically кова́рный, кова́рство, ко́зни (akin to кова́ть, ку́зница).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA