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.

Concepts

shark

swindler

fraud

crocodile

cheat

stingray

con man

imposter

trickster

gobble up

rook

shammer

welcher

welsher

goldbrick

sharks

bonito

alligator

flimflam

sharper

water elephant

kind of seaanimal

sea lawyer

extortioner

profiteer

eat up

swindle

extort

selachoidei

fish

lemon shark

pillager

poacher

preyer

prowler

ransacker

ravisher

snatcher

spoliator

swoper

circumventer

circumventor

cozener

crook

deceiver

faker

hoodwinker

jockey

knave

sharp

shaver

slicker

tricker

victimizer

dog fish

charlatan

cheater

clip artist

fake

finagler

ganef

ganof

gonif

goniff

impersonator

phony

ringer

sandbagger

scammer

sharpy

spiv

two-timer

utterer

weasel

bamboozle

bilk

chisel

cozen

fiddle

finagle

flim-flam

gip

gouge

gyp

hoax

hoodwink

mulct

play tricks

screw

short-change

take in

trick

whipsaw

beast

ogre

predator

jackal

loan shark

shark moth

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.