feign
/feɪn/ verb
- verb To make a false show or pretence of; to counterfeit or simulate. “The pupil feigned sickness on the day of his exam.”
- verb To imagine; to invent; to pretend to do something. “He feigned that he had gone home at the appointed time.”
- verb To make an action as if doing one thing, but actually doing another, for example to trick an opponent; to feint.
Synonyms
front put on airs deceive sham pretend affect dissemble simulate assume
Etymology
From Middle English feynen, feinen, borrowed from Old French feindre (“to pretend”), from Latin fingere (“to form, shape, invent”). Compare French feignant (present participle of feindre, literally “feigning”). Also compare feint, figment and fiction.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To give a mental existence to, as to something not real or actual; to imagine; to invent; hence, to pretend; to form and relate as if true.
- verb To represent by a false appearance of; to pretend; to counterfeit; as, to feign a sickness. Shak.
Etymology [OE. feinen, F. feindre (p. pr. feignant), fr. L. fingere; akin to L. figura figure,and E. dough. See Dough, and cf. Figure, Faint, Effigy, Fiction.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “feign”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details