1. Original meaning: A confidence man who practices the early twentieth century con game of dummy-chucking.
2. A person who fakes epileptic seizures in order to gain sympathy or charity, as in the short story "The Dummy-Chucker" by Arthur Somers Roche.
3. Any person who fakes injury or illness in order to gain sympathy, charity or compensation.
2. A person who fakes epileptic seizures in order to gain sympathy or charity, as in the short story "The Dummy-Chucker" by Arthur Somers Roche.
3. Any person who fakes injury or illness in order to gain sympathy, charity or compensation.
Dummy-chucking is a fraud in which a mannequin (or dummy) is placed on a roadway on a dark night. If a vehicle runs over the dummy then the confidence man runs onto the road, throws (chucks) the dummy out of sight and then lays down in its place and pretends to have painful injuries. If the driver stops to see what happened then the dummy-chucker begs for monetary compensation.
by Dyslexic Van Buren June 21, 2010