Bribery is the act of offering money, gifts, or favors to someone in a position of authority or trust to persuade them to do something dishonest or break the rules. When someone tries to bribe a police officer to avoid a speeding ticket, they're offering money to make the officer ignore their duty. When a company bribes a government official to win a contract unfairly, they're paying to cheat the system.

Bribery corrupts how things are supposed to work. Imagine if students could bribe teachers for better grades, or if referees accepted money to favor one team. The whole point of rules and honest competition would collapse. A bribe is what the person offers, like cash or expensive gifts, and the person who accepts it becomes complicit in the dishonesty.

Bribery is illegal in most situations because it undermines fairness and trust. When officials can be bribed, laws stop mattering and honest people lose out to whoever has the most money to offer. That's why bribery is considered a serious crime in business and government.

The word can sometimes be used more lightly in families, like a parent joking about “bribing” a child with ice cream to finish homework, but real bribery involves corrupting someone's judgment or duty for personal gain.