• (RP, America) IPA: /feɪnt/

The noun is borrowed from French feinte, from feindre, from Old French feindre, faindre, from Latin fingere, the present active infinitive of fingō.

The verb is derived from the noun.

• Italian finta
• Occitan fencha, fenha
• osp finta (modern Spanish finta)

feint (plural feints)

1. (often, military) A movement made to confuse an opponent; a dummy.
   • 1683, William Temple, “Memoirs of what Pass’d in Christendom, from the War Begun 1672, to the Peace Concluded 1679. Chapter III.”, in The Works of Sir William Temple, […], volume I, London: […] J. Round, J[acob] Tonson, J. Clarke, B[enjamin] Motte, T. Wotton, S[amuel] Birt, and T[homas] Osborne, published 1731, →OCLC ↗, page 459 ↗:

     In October, Friburg had been taken by a Feint of the Duke of Crequi, before the Duke of Lorrain cou'd come to relieve it; […]

2. (boxing, fencing) A blow, thrust, or other offensive movement resembling an attack on some part of the body, intended to distract from a real attack on another part.
   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC ↗, pages 251–252 ↗:

     He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he mediated the most desperate catastrophe to our rencounter.

3. (figuratively) Something feigned; a false or pretend appearance; a pretence or stratagem.
   • 1712 January 29 (Gregorian calendar), [Philobrune [pseudonym]], “FRIDAY, January 18, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 286; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC ↗, page 429 ↗:

     [I]f your zeal slackens, how can one help thinking that Mr. Courtly's letter is but a feint to get off from a subject in which either your own, or the private and base ends of others to whom you are partial, or those of whom you are afraid, would not endure a reformation?

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1843 December 18, Charles Dickens, “Stave Three. The Second of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC ↗, pages 111–112 ↗:

     If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), and stood there; he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding; […]

   • 1848 December 18, Charles Dickens, “The Gift Bestowed”, in The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. A Fancy for Christmas-time, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC ↗, page 14 ↗:

     Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful man whom he addressed, Mr. William approached him nearer, and made a feint of accidentally knocking the table with a decanter, to rouse him.

• French: feinte
• German: Finte
• Italian: finta
• Portuguese: finta, drible
• Russian: финт
• Spanish: finta, amago

feint (feints, present participle feinting; simple past and past participle feinted)

1. (transitive, boxing, fencing)
   1. To direct (a blow, thrust, or other offensive movement resembling an attack) on some part of the body, intended to distract from a real attack on another part.
      • 1914, Booth Tarkington, “The Imitator”, in Penrod, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC ↗, page 231 ↗:

        Even Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind of taunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, he practised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged, he rasped out the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered to horrible perfection.

      • 1924 October 10, Harold Lamb, “Forward”, in Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, editor, Adventure, volume XLIX, number I, New York, N.Y., London: The Ridgway Company, →OCLC ↗, page 25 ↗, column 1:

        I spurred on the Turani instead of pulling him in, and stood up in the saddle just as we came upon the two. By feinting a slash at one I made him throw up his saber to guard his head. Then, leaning down as the three ponies came together, I cut at the other's neck, getting home over his blade. His mount reared and shelled him out of the saddle like a pea out of a pod.

   2. (rare) To direct a feint or mock attack against (someone).
      • 1857, [Thomas Hughes], “The Fight”, in Tom Brown's School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC ↗, part II, page 323 ↗:

        Feint him—use your legs! draw him about! he'll lose his wind then in no time, and you can go into him.

2. (intransitive, boxing, fencing, also, often, military) To make a feint or mock attack.
   • 1880 November 11, Lew[is] Wallace, chapter XVI, in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗, book fifth, page 387 ↗:

     Ben-Hur feinted with his right hand. The stranger warded, slightly advancing his left arm. Ere he could return to guard, Ben-Hur caught him by the wrist in a grip which years at the oar had made terrible as a vise.

   • 1893–1897 (date written), Robert Louis Stevenson, “Swanston Cottage”, in St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, published 1897, →OCLC ↗, page 67 ↗:

     My assailant stood a little; in the thick darkness I could see him bob and sidle as though he were feinting at me for an advantageous onfall.

• French: feinter
• German: fintieren
• Portuguese: lançar um ataque simulado, simular
• Russian: финти́ть
• Spanish: fintar, fintear

Borrowed from French feint, the past participle of feindre: see etymology 1.

feint (not comparable)

1. (boxing, fencing, also, often, military) Of an attack or offensive movement: directed toward a different part from the intended strike.
2. (obsolete) Feigned, counterfeit, fake.
   • 1855, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], “Contains Two or Three Acts of a Little Comedy”, in The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC ↗, page 90 ↗:

     We force ourselves to be hypocrites, and hide our wrongs from them; we speak of a bad father with false praises; we wear feint smiles over our tears and deceive our children—deceive them, do we?

A variant of faint.

feint (not comparable)

1. Of lines printed on paper as a handwriting guide: not bold; faint, light; also, of such paper: ruled with faint lines of this sort. [from mid 19th c.]