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FEIGNED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not genuine
Example:
feigned sympathy
Classified under:
Similar:
insincere (lacking sincerity)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb feign
Context examples:
He shaved hairs from the back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight inequality in its edge somewhere.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
But he said, and his voice was steady, and he still feigned to see with dull eyes and to shiver from his sickness: The way is clear.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Pike, the malingerer, who, in his lifetime of deceit, had often successfully feigned a hurt leg, was now limping in earnest.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell, because she liked to be petted.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
His regard for her, infinitely surpassing anything that Willoughby ever felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sincere or constant—which ever we are to call it—has subsisted through all the knowledge of dear Marianne's unhappy prepossession for that worthless young man!—and without selfishness—without encouraging a hope!—could he have seen her happy with another—Such a noble mind!—such openness, such sincerity!—no one can be deceived in HIM.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
But he was consumed with indignation, real or feigned.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
This girl, he continued, looking at me, knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
