What It Means
To grift is to use dishonest tricks to illegally take money or property.
The email scammer shamelessly grifted thousands of dollars from unwitting victims.
Grift in Context
“When the families demanded he return the jewellery he had grifted from them he arranged meetings and then did not show.” — Peter Spriggs, The Echo (South Essex, England), 31 Oct. 2025
Did You Know?
Someone who grifts is a thief, but of a particular sort: they illegally obtain money or property by means of cleverness or deceit, and do not usually resort to physical force or violence. A grifter might be a pickpocket, a crooked gambler, a scammer, or a con artist. The most plausible etymology we have for the murky term is that grift is an early 20th century alteration of graft, a slightly older word which refers to the acquisition of money or property in dishonest or questionable ways. Both grift and graft have noun and verb forms.
www.merriam-webster.com
