Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Disposed to lie, cheat, defraud, or deceive.
  • adjective Resulting from or marked by a lack of honesty.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not honest; without honesty; destitute of probity or integrity; having or exercising a disposition to deceive, cheat, or defraud.
  • Not honest in quality; proceeding from or exhibiting lack of honesty, fraudulent; knavish: as, a dishonest transaction.
  • Dishonored; disgraced.
  • Dishonorable; disgraceful; ignominious.
  • Unchaste; lewd.
  • Synonyms and False, unfair, disingenuous, unscrupulous, perfidious, treacherous, slippery.
  • To dishonor; disgrace.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Dishonorable; shameful; indecent; unchaste; lewd.
  • adjective obsolete Dishonored; disgraced; disfigured.
  • adjective Wanting in honesty; void of integrity; faithless; disposed to cheat or defraud; not trustworthy.
  • adjective Characterized by fraud; indicating a want of probity; knavish; fraudulent; unjust.
  • transitive verb obsolete To disgrace; to dishonor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Not honest.
  • adjective Interfering with honesty.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective capable of being corrupted
  • adjective deceptive or fraudulent; disposed to cheat or defraud or deceive

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English dishoneste, dishonorable, from Old French deshoneste, probably from Medieval Latin *dishonestus : Latin dis-, dis- + Latin honestus, honorable; see honest.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French deshoneste, from Latin dehonestus. See dis-, honest

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word dishonest.

Examples

  • Let us quickly acknowledge that the phrase "dishonest political rhetoric" is often a case of using three words where two will do.

    Picking Up Obama's Gauntlet on Taxes Jr. Holman W. Jenkins 2012

  • In a stern speech at the opening of the meeting of lawmakers, independent experts and advocates, Obama strongly denounced what he described as dishonest budgeting practices during the Bush administration, which he said had budgeted "zero dollars" for the Iraq war or for natural disasters, preferring to use emergency supplemental funds that entailed heavy deficit spending.

    Archive 2009-02-01 Matt Johnston 2009

  • After criticizing what he calls dishonest accounting in the past, the president is putting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into that main budget.

    CNN Transcript Feb 28, 2009 2009

  • In 2004 Labor blamed what it described as a dishonest interest rate scare campaign.

    Speech: A Narrative of Success 2007

  • "Frankly if all that stuff were true I wouldn't vote for myself," Gingrich said in Jacksonville on Monday, referring to what he called "dishonest" Romney ads.

    CNN.com 2012

  • Ichter, for what he called their dishonest behavior related to a deposition.

    Law.com - Newswire 2010

  • Ichter, for what he called their dishonest behavior related to a deposition.

    Law.com - Newswire 2010

  • Someone who would do that is what we call a dishonest propagandist and party loyalist, and, in any event, is unlikely to have any credibility with anyone beyond already-converted, fellow Obama admirers.

    Salon 2010

  • Mr. Bayh, lazy and dishonest is no way to go through life.

    Think Progress » Bayh tries to walk back inaccurate claim about Congress not creating jobs, but still gets it wrong. 2010

  • Just like Rahm and Obama you are engaging in dishonest obfuscation to invalidate liberal criticism of Obama and the rightward direction of the Democratic party.

    Matthew Yglesias » Government for Sale 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.