feign
pronunciation
How to pronounce feign in British English:
UK [feɪn]
How to pronounce feign in American English:
US [feɪn]
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- Verb:
- make believe with the intent to deceive
- make a pretence of
Word Origin
- feign
- feign: [13] Feign is first cousin to faint. It comes from the present stem of Old French faindre or feindre ‘pretend, shirk’, whose past participle gave English faint. This in turn came from Latin fingere ‘make, shape’, which also gave English effigy, fiction, figure, and figment and is related to English dairy and dough. The semantic progression from ‘make, shape’ to ‘reform or change fraudulently’, and hence ‘pretend’, had already begun in classical Latin times.=> dairy, dough, effigy, faint, fiction, figure
- feign (v.)
- A 17c. respelling of fain, fein, from Middle English feinen, feynen "disguise or conceal (deceit, falsehood, one's real meaning); dissemble, make false pretenses, lie; pretend to be" (c. 1300), from Old French feindre "hesitate, falter; be indolent; lack courage; show weakness," also transitive, "to shape, fashion; depict, represent; feign, pretend; imitate" (12c.), from Latin fingere "to touch, handle; devise; fabricate, alter, change" (see fiction). From late 14c. as "simulate (an action, an emotion, etc.)." Related: Feigned; feigning. The older spelling is that of faint, feint, but this word acquired a -g- in imitation of the French present participle stem feign- and the Latin verb.
Example
- 1. Some patients feign interest in order to improve their chances of being discharged .
- 2. Distillers and brewers feign disapproval of binge drinking , but keep producing the stuff , even if there are casualties .
- 3. Brazilian bosses have always assumed that without evidence linking them directly to wrongdoing , it was enough to feign ignorance .
- 4. A proposition that was unrealistic to start with has been rejected . We should not feign surprise .
- 5. Mr obama has learned to show a bit more warmth , or at least to feign it .