shark

Meaning

Noun

1. A scaleless, predatory fish of the superorder Selachimorpha, with a cartilaginous skeleton and 5 to 7 gill slits on each side of its head.
2. The noctuid moth Cucullia umbratica.
3. A university student who is not a fresher that has engaged in sexual activity with a fresher; usually habitually and with multiple people.

Verb

1. To fish for sharks.
2. Of a university student who is not a fresher, to engage in sexual activity with a fresher, or to be at a bar or club with the general intention of engaging in such activity.

Verb

1. (obsolete) To steal or obtain through fraud.
2. (obsolete) To play the petty thief; to practice fraud or trickery; to swindle.
3. (obsolete) To live by shifts and stratagems.

Verb

To pick or gather indiscriminately or covertly.

Synonyms

swindler

fraud

stingray

cheat

crocodile

🐊

welcher

welsher

goldbrick

rook

shammer

sharks

con man

bonito

trickster

gobble up

imposter

finagle

finagler

flimflam

gip

gouge

gyp

hoax

hoodwink

hoodwinker

impersonator

jackal

jockey

knave

lemon shark

loan shark

mulct

ogre

phony

pillager

poacher

predator

preyer

profiteer

prowler

ransacker

ravisher

ringer

scammer

screw

sharp

sharper

shaver

short-change

slicker

snatcher

spiv

swindle

take in

trick

tricker

two-timer

utterer

victimizer

weasel

whipsaw

play tricks

sea lawyer

ganef

sandbagger

fish

🐟

flim-flam

spoliator

kind of seaanimal

water elephant

clip artist

ganof

gonif

goniff

sharpy

cozener

selachoidei

dog fish

swoper

circumventor

circumventer

alligator

shark moth

bamboozle

beast

bilk

charlatan

cheater

chisel

cozen

crook

deceiver

eat up

extort

extortioner

fake

faker

fiddle

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʃɑːk/

Etymology

From Middle English shark (used by Thomas Beckington in 1442 to refer to a kind of fish), of uncertain origin. Most likely from a semantic extension of the German-derived shark (“scoundrel”), see below. The fish was originally called a dogfish or haye in English and Middle English.
alternative theories
Some older dictionaries derived the word from Latin c(h)archarias, c(h)acharus (from Ancient Greek), but admit that "the requisite [Old French] forms intermediate between E. shark and L. carcharus are not found, and it is not certain that the name [shark] was orig. applied to the fish; it may have been first used of a greedy man".
Other older authorities speculated that the word might derive from Yucatec Maya xok (“fish”) (/ʃok/), as John Hawkins brought a specimen from the area where Mayan was spoken to England in the 1560s. However, the 1442 use rules out a New World origin for the word.