verb (used with object)
- to represent fictitiously; put on an appearance of: to feign sickness.
- to invent fictitiously or deceptively, as a story or an excuse.
- to imitate deceptively: to feign another’s voice.
verb (used without object)
- to make believe; pretend: She’s only feigning, she isn’t really ill.
verb
- to put on a show of (a quality or emotion); pretendto feign innocence
- (tr) to make up; inventto feign an excuse
- (tr) to copy; imitateto feign someone’s laugh
c.1300, from Old French feign-, present participle stem of feindre “pretend, represent, imitate, shirk” (12c.), from Latin fingere “to touch, handle; devise; fabricate, alter, change” (see fiction). Related: Feigned; feigning.