Past tense of grift; to obtain money or property through swindling, fraud, or a confidence game.
From 'grift,' an American slang term originating in underworld jargon around the early 1900s, possibly from German 'greifen' meaning 'to grasp' or from carnival workers' argot.
American crime fiction and noir novels made 'grift' and 'grifter' famous in the 1920s-40s, but the word's origins in carnival and circus culture suggest it started with traveling con artists who literally moved from town to town.
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