核心畫面

You can picture swindle as the moment the victim hands it over. Nothing is grabbed and nothing is taken behind anyone's back — someone believed a story, and paid because of it.

swindle 可以想成「對方自己把東西交出來」的那一刻。沒有人動手搶,也沒有人趁你不注意拿走。是那個人相信了一個說更多收起swindle 可以想成「對方自己把東西交出來」的那一刻。沒有人動手搶,也沒有人趁你不注意拿走。是那個人相信了一個說法,然後心甘情願地付了錢。所以這個字的重量不在金額,而在「說法是假的」。整個 swindle 的世界,都是從這一個畫面長出來的:一個假的理由,一個自願的動作。

From the word’s history

A back-formation from swindler, borrowed from German Schwindler; the German verb schwindeln goes back to Old High German swintan, a root about diminishing or wasting away.

資料上寫的是:swindle 是從 swindler(騙子)倒回去造出來的。swindler 借自德文 Schwindler,動詞 schwindeln 再往前是古高地德語 swintan,那一支的意思跟「變少、衰退」有關。有意思的是,這個字是先有「騙子」才有「騙」這個動作,剛好呼應它的核心:先有一個人編故事,才有東西被交出去。

Packet Wiktionary etymology for 'swindle' (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:931872377:39778): 'Back-formation from swindler, from German Schwindler, from German schwindeln... from Old High German swintilōn, frequentative of the verb swintan, from Proto-West Germanic *swindan ("to diminish").'

Two branches

騙錢:動作,以及整樁案子

這兩個是同一件事的兩種說法:一個是做這件事,一個是這件事本身。

verb · B2

To take money or property from someone by lying to them: you make them believe something false, and they hand it over themselves.

詐騙(錢財)

棋盤上的賊招:唯一不帶罪的 swindle

核心畫面只借走一半:「讓對方自己走錯」還在,「違規」不見了。所以棋手說這個字是佩服,不是譴責。

noun · C1

In chess, a clever move played from a losing position that tempts the opponent into a mistake, so the game ends in a draw or even a win.

(西洋棋)險中求勝的妙著