pious fraud

English

Etymology

Calque of Latin pia fraus.

Noun

pious fraud (countable and uncountable, plural pious frauds)

  1. An act of innocent deceit, technically using the methods of a fraudster but for an honest, honorable purpose.
    White lies are verbal cases of pious fraud.
  2. A person involved in such a fraud.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.