[Excerpted from Black's Law Dictionary, West Publishing Co., 1951]

Misrepresentation - Any manifestation by words or other conduct by one person to another that, under the circumstances, amounts to an assertion not in accordance with the facts.

False or fraudulent - misrepresentation is a representation contrary to mere oral misstatements of fact, made by a person with a knowledge of its falsehood, and being the cause of the other party's entering into the contract.

Negligent - misrepresentation is a false representation made by a person who has no reasonable grounds for believing it to be true, though he does not know that it is untrue, or even believes it to be true.

Tort - (from Lat. torquere, to twist, tortus, twisted, wrested aside). A private or civil wrong or injury. A wrong independent of contract.

Personal Tort - One involving or consisting in an injury to the person or to the reputation or feelings, as distinguished from an injury or damage to real or personal property, called a "property tort."

Negligence - The omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided by those ordinary considerations which ordinarily regulate human affairs, would do, or the doing of something which a reasonable and prudent man would not do.

Gross Negligence - The intentional failure to perform a manifest duty in reckless disregard of the consequences as affecting the life or property of another; such as gross want of care and regard for the rights of others as to justify the presumption of willfulness and wantonness.

Fraud - An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of including another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right; a false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his legal injury.
A generic term, embracing all multifarious means which human ingenuity can devise, and which are resorted to by one individual to get advantage over another by false suggestions or by suppression of truth, and includes all surprise, trick, cunning, dissembling, and any unfair way by which another is cheated.