con artist

• con-artist

Clipping of confidence artist.

con artist (plural con artists)

1. A person who defrauds or swindles others after first gaining their trust; a scam operator.

   Synonyms: conman, con; see also Thesaurus:confidence trickster, Thesaurus:deceiver

   • 2021 February 9, Christina Newland, “Is Tom Hanks part of a dying breed of genuine movie stars?”, in BBC‎:

     He's the FBI agent antagonist in Catch Me If You Can (2002) opposite a buoyantly charming young Leonardo DiCaprio as con artist Frank Abagnale, but his character is more of a determined cat to Leo's mouse than a real foil; he's simply a prim Eisenhower-era man with a job to do.

   • 2021 February 23, Rafael Behr, “Brexit is a machine to generate perpetual grievance. It's doing its job perfectly”, in The Guardian‎:

     Leavers will be attracted to that story because it spares them the discomfort of admitting that they voted for a con, and then made a prime minister of the con artist.

• Nostratic, narcotist, tacitrons, tractions, transotic