foist
foist Lexical Profile
foist Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To impose an unwelcome or unnecessary person or thing on someone else.
"The senior manager tried to foist all the tedious administrative paperwork on the new interns."
To pass off something inferior, counterfeit, or spurious as genuine, valuable, or original.
"Unscrupulous dealers sometimes attempt to foist modern reproductions on unsuspecting art collectors."
Word Nuance & Usage
"Foist" is almost always used transitively with the prepositions "on" or "upon" to indicate the unwilling recipient (e.g., "foist a task on someone"). Do not confuse it with the rhyming verb "hoist," which means to raise or lift something up.
• Rhymes for foist
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the mid-16th century from Dutch dialect vuisten, meaning "to take in the hand" (specifically, to palm a rigged die in a game of chance), derived from vuist ("fist").