Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

Cheaters

The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922

The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary

or ESCHEATORS. Officers appointed to look after the king's escheats, a duty which gave them gn^eat opportunities of fraud and oppression, and in consequence many complaints were made of their misconduct. Hence it seems that a "cheater" came to signify a fraudulent person, and thence the verb to "cheat" was derived. Rapalje & L.