feign Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb make believe with the intent to deceive
    affect; pretend; dissemble; sham.
    • He feigned that he was ill
    • He shammed a headache
  2. verb make a pretence of
    assume; simulate; sham.
    • She assumed indifference, even though she was seething with anger
    • he feigned sleep

WordNet

Feign transitive verb
Etymology
OE. feinen, F. feindre (p. pr. feignant), fr. L. fingere; akin to L. figura figure,and E. dough. See Dough, and cf. Figure, Faint, Effigy, Fiction.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Feigned ; present participle & verbal noun Feigning
Definitions
  1. To give a mental existence to, as to something not real or actual; to imagine; to invent; hence, to pretend; to form and relate as if true.
    There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. Neh. vi. 8.
    The poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods. Shak.
  2. To represent by a false appearance of; to pretend; to counterfeit; as, to feign a sickness. Shak.
  3. To dissemble; to conceal. Obs. Spenser.

Webster 1913