cheat [LME] This started out as a shortening of escheat, a legal term for the reverting of property to the state when the owner dies without heirs. As an extension of this, the word came to mean ‘to confiscate’, and then in the 16th century ‘to deprive someone of something unfairly’. Finally, the senses ‘to practise deception’ and ‘to try to get an advantage by breaking the rules’ came to the fore.