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Webster 1913 Edition


Forgery

For′ger-y

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Forgeries
(#)
.
[Cf. F.
forgerie
.]
1.
The act of forging metal into shape.
[Obs.]
Useless the
forgery

Of brazen shield and spear.
Milton.
2.
The act of forging, fabricating, or producing falsely; esp., the crime of fraudulently making or altering a writing or signature purporting to be made by another; the false making or material alteration of or addition to a written instrument for the purpose of deceit and fraud;
as, the
forgery
of a bond
.
Bouvier.
3.
That which is forged, fabricated, falsely devised, or counterfeited.
These are the
forgeries
of jealously.
Shakespeare
Syn.
Counterfeit
;
Forgery
.
Counterfeit is chiefly used of imitations of coin, or of paper money, or of securities depending upon pictorial devices and engraved designs for identity or assurance of genuineness. Forgery is more properly applied to making a false imitation of an instrument depending on signatures to show genuineness and validity.
Abbott.

Webster 1828 Edition


Forgery

FORGERY

, n.
1.
The act of forging or working metal into shape. In this sense, rarely or never now used.
2.
The act of falsifying; the crime of counterfeiting; as the forgery of coin, or of bank notes, or of a bond. Forgery may consist in counterfeiting a writing, or in setting a false name to it, to the prejudice of another person.
3.
That which is forged or counterfeited. Certain letters, purporting to be written by Gen. Washington, during the revolution, were forgeries.

Definition 2024


forgery

forgery

English

Noun

forgery (plural forgeries)

  1. The act of forging metal into shape.
    the forgery of horseshoes
  2. The act of forging, fabricating, or producing falsely; especially the crime of fraudulently making or altering a writing or signature purporting to be made by another, the false making or material alteration of or addition to a written instrument for the purpose of deceit and fraud.
    the forgery of a bond
    • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate, Prologue:
      Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability: [] it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
  3. That which is forged, fabricated, falsely devised or counterfeited.
  4. (archaic) An invention, creation.

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