Word of the Day

: May 22, 2008

subreption

noun sub-REP-shun

What It Means

: a deliberate misrepresentation; also : an inference drawn from it

subreption in Context

Shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit against the company for its subreption of earnings and losses.

Did You Know?

In canon law and Scots law, subreption is the obtainment of a dispensation or gift by concealment of the truth, whereas obreption is the obtainment of a dispensation or gift by fraud. Both terms are from Latin nouns: respectively, "subreptio," meaning "the act of stealing," and "obreptio," meaning "the act of stealing upon." The derivation of "subreption" also traces to the Latin verb "surripere," meaning "to take away secretly," which is the base of the Anglicized term "surreptitious," a synonym of "stealthy." "Obreption" shares an ancestor with the word "reptile": Latin "repere," meaning "to creep."