From Middle English feynen, feinen, borrowed from Old French feindre, from Latin fingo.

• IPA: /feɪn/

feign (feigns, present participle feigning; simple past and past participle feigned)

1. To make a false show or pretence of; to counterfeit or simulate.

   The pupil feigned sickness on the day of his exam.

   They feigned her signature on the cheque.

   • 1559, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, III.iii.18-21:

     [T]he truest poetry is the most
     feigning, and lovers are given to poetry, and what
     they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do
     feign.

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC ↗:

     She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign.

2. To imagine; to invent; to pretend to do something.

   He feigned that he had gone home at the appointed time.

   • '1511, King James Translators, Nehemiah 5:8:

     Then I sent unto him, saying, There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart.

3. To make an action as if doing one thing, but actually doing another, for example to trick an opponent; to feint.
4. To hide or conceal.

   Jessica feigned the fact that she had not done her homework.

• (represent by a false appearance) front, put on airs
• See Thesaurus:deceive

• French: feindre
• German: vorgeben, vortäuschen, vormachen, fingieren
• Italian: fingere, simulare
• Portuguese: fingir, dissimular, aparentar
• Russian: притворя́ться
• Spanish: fingir, inventar, aparentar

• German: ausdenken
• Italian: immaginarsi, inventarsi
• Portuguese: inventar, imaginar
• Russian: выду́мывать
• Spanish: inventar, imaginar

• German: verheimlichen, verbergen
• Italian: dissimulare, bluffare, mascherare, nascondere
• Portuguese: omitir
• Russian: скрыва́ть