sham vs cheater

sham and cheater both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
sham	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
cheater	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, cheater is a hypernym of sham; that is, cheater is a word with a broader meaning than sham:

Other hypernyms of sham include beguiler, cheat, deceiver, slicker, trickster.

sham (noun)	cheater (noun)
something that is a counterfeit; not what it seems to be	someone who leads you to believe something that is not true
a person who makes deceitful pretenses

sham (adjective)	cheater (adjective)
adopted in order to deceive

sham (verb)	cheater (verb)
make believe with the intent to deceive
make a pretence of