dissemble
/dɪˈsɛmbəl/ verb
Forms dissembles dissembling dissembled
- verb (transitive) To disguise or conceal something.
- verb (transitive) To feign, dissimulate.
- verb (transitive) To deliberately ignore something; to pretend not to notice.
- verb (intransitive) To falsely hide one's opinions or feelings.
Synonyms
disregard take no notice of brush off discount despise ignore misheed misregard neglect pass pass by pay no heed put aside set at nought shrug off slough tune out unheed unmind feign sham pretend affect cloak mask act
Etymology
First attested in the beginning of the 15th century, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English dissemblen, dissimblen, dissemelen, borrowed from Old French dessambler, dissembler, disembler, itself borrowed from Latin dissimulō and modified after sembler, semblance, etc. Doublet of dissimulate, dissimilate, and dissimule. Displaced native Old English mīþan.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To hide under a false semblance or seeming; to feign (something) not to be what it really is; to put an untrue appearance upon; to disguise; to mask.
- verb To put on the semblance of; to make pretense of; to simulate; to feign.
- verb To conceal the real fact, motives, He that hateth dissembleth with his lips. Prov. xxvi. 24.
Etymology [OF. dissembler to be dissimilar; pref. dis- (L. dis-) + F. sembler to seem, L. simulare to simulate; cf. L. dissimulare to dissemble. See Simulate, and cf. Dissimulate.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “dissemble”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details