griftern.

1915 G. Bronson-Howard God's Man iii. iii. 213 Every time I pick up one of these here magazines..I jest naturally seem to encounter a lot of junk...whenever I read about grifters or guns—always this ‘master cracks~man’ stuff,..but when it comes to blasting an ordinary box I could kick my way into in my stocking feet, I read..‘The burglar leaped lightly over the garden wall.’

1927 K. Nicholson Barker 149 Grifter, grafter.

1930 J. Lait Big House i. 7 A card or dice cheater is a ‘grifter’.

1955 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. No. 24. 98 A grifter denotes a pickpocket or sneak thief. The term..has..in recent years so generalized that it now includes all sorts of non~violent criminals.

1965 R. O'Connor Jack London i. i. 18 He lived off the horoscope trade until the World Fair of 1893 suggested a move to Chicago, as it did to thousands of other..grifters.