骗子

The Chinese word 骗子 (piànzi) for "swindler" or "fraudster" is composed of two characters: 骗 (piàn) and 子 (zi). The character 骗 originally meant "to deceive" or "to cheat", and is composed of the radical 言 (yán), which represents speech or language, and the phonetic component 扁 (biǎn), which is related to the idea of "flattery" or "deceit". The character 子 (zi) is a common suffix used to form nouns, and in this case it adds the meaning of "person" or "agent" to the word, resulting in the term 骗子 (piànzi) to refer to someone who engages in deception or fraud.