sham / sham/ • n. 1. a thing that is not what it is purported to be: the proposed legislation is a farce and a sham. ∎  pretense: it all turned out to be sham and hypocrisy. ∎  a person who pretends to be someone or something they are not: he was a sham, totally unqualified for his job as a senior doctor.2. short for pillow sham.• adj. bogus; false: a clergyman who arranged a sham marriage.• v. (shammed, sham·ming) [intr.] falsely present something as the truth: was he ill or was he shamming? ∎  [tr.] pretend to be or to be experiencing: she shams indifference.DERIVATIVES: sham·mer n.

sham sb. †trick, fraud XVII; spurious imitation XVIII; adj. false, counterfeit XVII; vb. †defraud. hoax; †attempt to pass off; counterfeit, assume appearance of XVII. of uncert. orig.; poss. north. dial. var. of SHAME.

sham. C18 term for a fake ‘ruin’ or other building erected for effect, e.g. the ‘Sham Gothic’ of Batty Langley.

Bibliography

K. Clark (1974)

SHAM

False; without substance.

A sham pleading is one that is good in form but is so clearly false in fact that it does not raise any genuine issue.