feign

来自PIE*dheigh, 揉捏，建造，词源同dough, fiction. 引申词义虚假，假装。

feign

feign: [13] Feign is first cousin to faint. It comes from the present stem of Old French faindre or feindre ‘pretend, shirk’, whose past participle gave English faint. This in turn came from Latin fingere ‘make, shape’, which also gave English effigy, fiction, figure, and figment and is related to English dairy and dough. The semantic progression from ‘make, shape’ to ‘reform or change fraudulently’, and hence ‘pretend’, had already begun in classical Latin times.
=> dairy, dough, effigy, faint, fiction, figure

feign (v.)

A 17c. respelling of fain, fein, from Middle English feinen, feynen "disguise or conceal (deceit, falsehood, one's real meaning); dissemble, make false pretenses, lie; pretend to be" (c. 1300), from Old French feindre "hesitate, falter; be indolent; lack courage; show weakness," also transitive, "to shape, fashion; depict, represent; feign, pretend; imitate" (12c.), from Latin fingere "to touch, handle; devise; fabricate, alter, change" (see fiction).

From late 14c. as "simulate (an action, an emotion, etc.)." Related: Feigned; feigning. The older spelling is that of faint, feint, but this word acquired a -g- in imitation of the French present participle stem feign- and the Latin verb.

1. She knew that her efforts to feign cheerfulness weren't convincing.

她明白自己强作欢颜是瞒不了谁的.

2. Feign suggests false representation or fictitious fabrication.

feign指错误的表现或人为的制造.

3. One morning, I didn't want to go to school, and decided to feign illness.

有天早晨我不想上学，于是决定装病。

4. They refuse marriage and even feign poverty!

婚不肯结,还要装穷!

5. He used to feign an excuse.

他惯于伪造口实.