Zhang Yingyu's The Book of Swindles (c. 1617), published during the late Ming dynasty, is said to be China's first collection of stories about fraud, swindles, hoaxes, and other forms of deception. Although practical jo… See more

The English philologist Robert Nares (1753–1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb hocus, which means "to cheat", "to impose upon" or (according to … See more

Robert Nares defined the word hoax as meaning "to cheat", dating from Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft.
The term h… See more

Hoaxes vary widely in their processes of creation, propagation, and entrenchment over time. Examples include:
• Academic hoaxes:
• Art-world hoaxes:
• Apocryphal claims that originate as a hoax gain wides… See more