hoax

Word family

hoax /həʊks $ hoʊks/ noun [countableC]

1 TRICK/DECEIVEa false warning about something dangerous 恶作剧，假警告

a bomb hoax

虚假炸弹恐吓

hoax calls (=telephone calls giving false information) to the police

恶作剧报警电话

2 TRICK/DECEIVEan attempt to make people believe something that is not true 骗局

an elaborate hoax

精心设计的骗局

Examples from the Corpus

hoax• To everybody's great relief, the bomb scare turned out to be a hoax.• The UFO sightings were revealed to be a hoax.• At the school she discovered the call had been a hoax.• Did Mr Hawthorne stand to gain from a hoax?• Their vivid colouring is a hoax.• I got an email about another computer virus, but I'm pretty sure it's just a hoax.• The rumor was that I had invented him to perpetrate a hoax and had actually written the books myself.• A hoax is a hoax, of course, but it seems different when the phoney says he is Balenciaga's grandson.• Had Neil Armstrong really walked on the moon or was it a magnificent hoax?• What was really wonderful was that the paper swallowed the hoax whole.• The hoax devices were destroyed in controlled explosions by army bomb disposal experts, using remote-controlled vehicles.

bomb hoax• Note the offence of making a bomb hoax call etc. under section 51 Criminal Law Act 1977.

elaborate hoax• This was nothing but an elaborate hoax perpetrated by her in revenge for all the suffering I had caused her.• It was still not clear last night whether the tapes were an elaborate hoax.

Origin hoax

(1700-1800) Probably from hocus; → HOCUS-POCUS

hoax noun

Chinese

Corpus