forgery

Etymology

It is formed from English forge + -ery.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb is from Old French forgier (“to forge, work metal; shape, fashion; falsify”), modern French forger,^[4][2] from Latin fabricō (“to frame, construct, build”), from fabrica (“workshop, smith's shop”), from faber (“workman, smith”).^[4][2][3] The Anglo-Norman verb forger, recorded from the early 12th century, already meant both to work metal and to forge documents or letters, and forgeur was both a metalworker and a forger of documents.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Something forged, counterfeited or fabricated: 1574, in A. Golding's translation of Marlorat's Catholike Exposition.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense "a thing made fraudulently" to the 1570s^[4] and Dictionary.com the word to 1565–75;^[5] Merriam-Webster's first known use is 1582, for the sense "invention".^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the late 16th century the word also meant invention or fiction, as in R. Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil (1582), and in a harsher sense deception or lying; this use is now only poetic.^[2][6] The sense "the making of a fraudulent imitation", especially of a document, follows in Shakespeare's Lucrece (1594),^[2][3] and Etymonline dates "act of counterfeiting" to the 1590s.^[4] The literal sense of the verb, working metal at a forge, was rare in the noun: forgery for the craft of forging metal is recorded only from 1610, in the Douay Bible, to 1671,^[2] and Etymonline notes that this sense went with forging instead.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined the word simply as "the crime of falsification", quoting Shakespeare's Henry VI.^[8] In law it is the fraudulent making of a false document or the altering of a real one; it was a misdemeanour at common law but is usually a felony under modern statutes.^[9] The fraud sense fits a wider pattern in English of describing truth and falsity in terms of industry and making, recorded since the early 14th century.^[10]

Timeline

• 1574 – something forged or counterfeited.^[2]
• 1582 – invention, fiction; also deception, lying (now only poetic).^[2][6]
• 1594 – the making of a fraudulent imitation, especially of a document, in Shakespeare's Lucrece.^[2][3] Etymonline dates the sense to the 1590s.^[4]
• 1610 – the craft of forging metal (obsolete by 1671).^[2]
• 1850 – a piece of forged metalwork (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The making or altering of a document, signature, banknote or work of art so that it passes as genuine, especially as a crime: She was charged with forgery after altering the will.^{[11][12][6][9]}
2. A forged thing; a counterfeit document, signature, banknote or painting: The gallery's prized landscape turned out to be a forgery.^[11][12][6]
3. (archaic) Invention; fiction.^[6][2]
4. (obsolete, 1610–1671) The craft of forging metal.^[6][2]

Word family

• forger

Related words

• forge
• fabric
• fabricate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
10. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press