To cheat or not to cheat, that is the question, or is it? Oops, sorry. the question is how do I define cheating? Let's hear what the dictionary says about cheating, what it means when we use the word to describe a person or activity:

1. to defraud; swindle: He cheated her out of her inheritance.
2. to deceive; influence by fraud: He cheated us into believing him a hero.

3. to elude; deprive of something expected: He cheated the law by suicide.
verb (used without object)
4. to practice fraud or deceit: She cheats without regrets.
5. to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards.
6. to take an examination or test in a dishonest way, as by improper access to answers.
7. Informal. to be sexually unfaithful (often fol. by on): Her husband knew she had been cheating all along. He cheated on his wife.
noun
8. a person who acts dishonestly, deceives, or defrauds: He is a cheat and a liar.
9. a fraud; swindle; deception: The game was a cheat.
10. Law. the fraudulent obtaining of another's property by a pretense or trick.
11. an impostor: The man who passed as an earl was a cheat.

As the word cheat is not found in Strong's lexicon, I chose to use our English word "deceive" as an equivalent for this essay and my best efforts to define cheating. Therefore, should I use the word deceive please consider it as being in fact the word cheat or any derivative thereof. "Deceive" is the Hebrew word "nasha" which can mean "to beguile, seize, greatly deceive, utterly deceive" and so on. The dictionary definitions first given in my response include as a definition for cheat, "to deceive; influence by fraud." Thus it is safe to equate deceive with cheat; to make these words synonymous.

In layman's terms a cheat is a dishonest person; one who is deceitful, commits fraudulent acts, a swindler (this word is similar to the word we often equate with pigs - swine), an impostor and so on.

If we speak in this article of defining what is a cheat in a personal relationship, then I suppose you need to go the specific relationship and examine it closely, keeping in mind and being very clear of the morals and principles of the two people involved. A relationship that involved a person, the one who was cheated on, with very high morals and principles, could find one labeling the offending party as a cheat, fraud, deceiver etc. if he/she did something like have a drink with a member of the opposite sex after work, forgetting that he/she was supposed to meet

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