A grifter is a person who goes by many other names as well with the most common of them being either a swindler or a con-artist. The second of the titles does more justice to it when the etymology behind the word con-artist is dug into a little deeper. In the annum of 1849 in some shady and not-so-shady streets of England there roamed a man who had the confidence of the devil himself as it was clear when he walked about and struck random conversations with as random a stranger he could find a way inside their walls of trust and their walls of doubt.
After finding that little hole that took him to the place we all consider “friendship” this man, who went by the name of William Thompson, would simply ask if the other was confident in him enough to lend him their watch and nine out of ten would trust him enough and lend him their watches after which he would just simply walk away and never turn back. Though this might come as a surprising read right now, it wasn’t back then, in the day when a fellow man trusted another unless he was proven guilty or unworthy of trust. The acts of William Thompson were discovered eventually when one of those who had lost their wristwatches to this con-artist saw him and reported him to the police after which he was arrested.
The word “con” in con-artist is the short for the word confidence and is what the grifter requires to achieve from his or her mark before he can pull off a trick successfully. The grifter is always sly and reads the person he is going to con fully before making his move as any individual will have one quality of them that outweighs the other, like it might be greed over vanity or credulity therefore, one must always be careful about whom one befriends.
Swindler
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