sham
Frequently Asked Questions
- The “charity” event was a sham—it was just an excuse for a tax write-off.
- I knew something about him seemed fake, but I didn’t expect him to turn out to be a complete sham.
- The dictator is known for holding sham elections to give the appearance of legitimacy.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The duo told Rolling Stone on Tuesday that they were sad about the turn of events with Crockett but confirmed that their swanky Satan-loving doo-wop isn’t a sham.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
In the sham group, participants were assigned foot angles that matched their natural walking pattern.
From Science Daily ● May 22, 2026
The FDA has demanded the company run another trial in which some patients would have to undergo sham brain surgery to serve as a control group.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
The town has become infamous among online animal rescue activists around the world for one thing - sham dog rescue shelters.
From BBC ● May 3, 2026
Gaum wanted to make a sham of me.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
In Minnesota, some Medicaid autism treatment centers, transportation providers and housing purveyors were shams.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 2026
Falsified images and propaganda have been misleading people to worse ends for many years, but these recent shams are evidence of a culture-wide abandonment of a common reality.
From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2026
We make our custom shams 1 inch smaller than the fill to achieve the really full look.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 3, 2023
He knows he can turn proceduralist rules into shams, and he knows most of his staff is either too constrained to do anything about it or unaware of what’s really going on.
From Slate ● Dec. 2, 2021
The history of race relations in Durham was, after all, a long line of such shams extending back for a century.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
I don’t feel like I got shammed or look like a fool.
From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2018
In 1692, his language was: "Witchcraft is a business that will not be shammed."
From Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather A Reply by Upham, Charles Wentworth
Some people shammed away this confession, and said he was non compos mentis; and had a mind, it seems, to assume the glory of being hanged for the greatest villain.
From An Historical Narrative of the Great and Terrible Fire of London, Sept. 2nd 1666 by Harvey, Gideon
One of them stumbled, fell, held his breath and shammed dead.
From The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
Hadji said he was ill of fever, and seemed like an idiot; but the orderly said that the illness was shammed and the stupidity assumed in order not to work.
From Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I (of 2) Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs by Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)
We have become so inured to all the shamming in plain sight that having it confirmed years later barely even feel like news.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2021
When a man grows insane, they treat him as shamming.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2018
We hope that, like the seemingly mad Edgar in King Lear, Daryl is just shamming – and that he will, like the Shakespearean dissembler, cast off his mask and take out the evil trash.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 14, 2016
If your point is that Peter is only shamming about his politics, how do you explain this willingness to be imprisoned for them?
From The Guardian ● Oct. 5, 2010
He was not even sure if Cluny was shamming, pretending that his injuries were severe merely as some kind of test or trap that he had set for his captains.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
Vocabulary lists containing sham
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
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Refugee
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This Week in Words: April 1 - 6, 2018
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