feign

Meanings

1. To make a false show or pretence of; to counterfeit or simulate.
2. To imagine; to invent; to pretend to do something.
3. To make an action as if doing one thing, but actually doing another, for example to trick an opponent; to feint.

Etymology

From Middle English feynen, feinen, borrowed from Old French feindre (“to pretend”), from Latin fingere (“to form, shape, invent”). Compare French feignant (present participle of feindre, literally “feigning”). Also compare feint, figment and fiction.