fake
pronunciation
How to pronounce fake in British English:
UK [feɪk]
How to pronounce fake in American English:
US [feɪk]
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- Noun:
- something that is a counterfeit; not what it seems to be
- a person who makes deceitful pretenses
- (football) a deceptive move made by a football player
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- Verb:
- make a copy of with the intent to deceive
- fake or falsify
- talk through one's hat
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- Adjective:
- fraudulent; having a misleading appearance
- not genuine or real; being an imitation of the genuine article
Word Origin
- fake
- fake: [19] The use of fake for ‘produce a fraudulent copy of’ is a comparatively recent development. It used to mean ‘do up something spurious to make it seem genuine’, and in this sense seems to be a descendant of the longobsolete verb feague [16]. Essentially it is a piece of underworld slang, and as such has a rather slippery semantic history. In the 19th century it was used, like its ancestor feague, for any number of nefarious operations, including beating up and killing (‘to fake a man out and out, is to kill him’, J H Vaux, Vocabulary of the Flash Language 1812), but its current sense leads back in a straight line to its probable ultimate source, German fegen ‘polish, refurbish’.This (like English fig ‘clothes, array’) was a derivative of the prehistoric Germanic base *feg-, a variant of *fag-, from which English gets fair ‘beautiful’.=> fair, feast, fig
- fake
- of unknown origin; attested in London criminal slang as adjective (1775 "a counterfeit"), verb (1812 "to rob"), and noun (1851, "a swindle;" of persons 1888, "a swindler"), but probably older. A likely source is feague "to spruce up by artificial means," from German fegen "polish, sweep," also "to clear out, plunder" in colloquial use. "Much of our early thieves' slang is Ger. or Du., and dates from the Thirty Years' War" [Weekley]. Or it may be from Latin facere "to do." Century Dictionary notes that "thieves' slang is shifting and has no history." The nautical word meaning "one of the windings of a cable or hawser in a coil" probably is unrelated, from Swedish veck "a fold." As a verb, "to feign, simulate" from 1941. To fake it is from 1915, jazz slang; to fake (someone) out is from 1940s, originally in sports. Related: Faked; fakes; faking. The jazz musician's fake book is attested from 1951.
Synonym
Example
- 1. The fake ceramic valve is poor and broken easily .
- 2. In fact they are ingredients for a fake identity card .
- 3. At chinese auctions , the bids are sometimes fake too .
- 4. People are ridiculed if spotted with a fake gucci handbag .
- 5. Enter the world of fake news and satire .