feign

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Nor will be, feign, and that without a cause,

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Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. transitive verb To give a false appearance of: feign sleep.
  2. transitive verb To represent falsely; pretend to: feign authorship of a novel.
  3. transitive verb To imitate so as to deceive: feign another's voice.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (10)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • The glory of the spoil A son of Jove shall boast:” and dreading sore Around his orchards massy walls he rears A dragon huge and fierce the guard maintains Whatever strangers to his realm approach Far thence he drives; and thus to Perseus too Haste, quickly haste from hence, lest soon I prove Thy glorious deeds but feign'd,--feign'd as thy birth Then force to threats he added,--strove to thrust The hero forth; who struggling, efforts urg'd Resisting, while he begg'd with softening words Proving in strength inferior (who in strength Could vie with Atlas?) —  The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I ; II
  • But there is a certain romantic senseless kind of love, such as poets sometimes celebrate, and men and women feign, which is a legitimate target for ridicule. —  The Magnificent Montez From Courtesan to Convert
  • Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see, My Muse bade, BEDFORD write, and that was She Milton had many qualities and tastes fitting him to be the delight of female society, and to delight in it. —  The Friendships of Women
  • And there is only that way, that I told you of, to find it out That I should mix with them--feign to be one of them!" —  Oddsfish!
  • To them, therefore, I had to feign feigning: I had to feign, that is, that I was feigning to keep their confidence, but that in reality that I was betraying it; while to Mr. Chiffinch I had to disclose these precious secrets not as true but as false, and conjecture with him what was the truth. —  Oddsfish!
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

mock ·  unfeigned ·  undisguised ·  inexpressible ·  utmost ·  utter ·  momentary ·  inward ·  apparent ·  abject ·  childish ·  mutual

Used in the same contextWord Family

feign:   feigned ·  feigning
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English feinen, from Old French feindre, from Latin fingere, to shape, form; see dheigh- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. The g is a modern insertion, in forced imitation of the F. present participle feignant and L.fingere (Middle English feigne only in partly modernized editions of Gower); reg. fain or fein (as still in deriv. faint, feint), early modern English faine, fayne, from Middle English feinen, feynen, rarely fainen, faynen, feignen, from Old French feindre, faindre, French feindre = Provencal feigner, fenher, finher = Spanish Portuguese fingir = Italian fignere, fingere, feign, pretend, = Dutch fingeren = Germanfingiren = Danish fingere = Swedish fingera, from Latin fingere, past participle fictus, touch, handle, usually form, shape, frame, form in thought, imagine, conceive, contrive, devise, feign (√ *fig in figura, etc.: see figure), = Gothic (Moesogothic) deigan, form (as clay, etc., later daigs = English dough), = Greek θιγγάνειν, touch, handle, = Sanskritdih, smear. See dough; and see fictile, fiction, figment, figure, etc., from the same Latin verb.
  2. Middle English fayne; from the verb.
 

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/feɪn/
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