sham

"They recruited US citizens to engage in sham marriages, arranged sham wedding ceremonies complete with officiants, wedding attire, photographers, and attendees," McDonald said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026

Madoff’s brother, Peter, pleaded guilty to receiving $15.7 million in sham loans and giving $9.9 million in sham loans to family members.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026

But Dr. Prasad demanded a randomized controlled trial with a placebo group undergoing sham brain surgery.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

Lewis suggested the sale of Sawyer's company, The Clinic Club, had been a sham, adding the lack of an original copy of the sale agreement or messages with the buyer, Lilly Silverman, also suggested this.

From BBC ● May 20, 2026

This station with its hanging baskets of flowers is another sham, like Theresienstadt with its concerts, plays and lectures.

From "What the Night Sings" by Vesper Stamper

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

Typically, I reuse the inserts and rotate and store the shams.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 3, 2023

Even so, auditors at EY, also known as Ernst & Young, eventually blessed the transactions, which federal authorities now claim were shams, according to previously unreported documents made public in a court case last year.

From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2022

“I don’t believe one whit in such shams, nor should you, Nell Warne.”

From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan

I don’t feel like I got shammed or look like a fool.

From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2018

To get shut of him, she shammed dead.

From A Man in the Open by Roger Pocock

It is useless to assert that all these men were hypocrites, that they shammed religion, that they used it as a bait to catch the unwary.

From The Hearts of Men by H. (Harold) Fielding

He shammed drunk next day, so that you should not suspect him.

From The Rider of Waroona by G. Firth Scott

I think now that she shammed sleep, in order to distract my attention from her.

From A Modern Wizard by Rodrigues Ottolengui

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

I also saw him, of course, at exercise continually, and I saw that he was becoming insane, and was being treated as if he was 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