feign ( g silent), fainen, faynen, feigne feine, feyne

t. & i. [Fr. feindre, from Lat fin go to feign.] A. Transitive : 1. To invent or imagine; to image by an act of the mind. "No such things are done as thou sayest, but thou feignedst them out of thine own heart."- Nehem . vi. 8. 2. To make a show of, to pretend, to counterfeit. "He shulde not with feigned chere Deceive love." Gower, i. 67. *3. To di emble, to hide, to conceal under a false show. "Yet both do strive their fearfulne to feign ." IMG:content-1514.png:[blocks in formation] Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods." Shakesp.: Merchant of Venice, v. 80. 2. To counterfeit, to di emble. "Most friendship is feigning." Shakesp.: As You Like It, ii. 7. Crabb thus discriminates between to feign and to pretend : "These words may be used either for doing or saying; they are both opposed to what is true, but they differ from the motives of the agent: to feign is taken either in a bad or an indifferent sense; to pretend always in a bad sense: one feigns in order to gain some future end; a person feigns sickne in order to be excused from paying a dis agreeable visit: one pretends in order to serve a present purpose; a child pretends to have lost his book who wishes to excuse himself for his idlene . To feign consists often of a line of conduct; to pre tend consists always of words; Uly es feigned madne in order to escape from going to the Trojan war; according to Virgil, the Grecian Sinon pre tended to be a deserter come over to the Trojan camp: in matters of speculation, to feign is to invent by force of the imagination; to pretend is to set up by force of self-conceit." ( Crabb : Eng. Synon.) fêigned ( g silent), pa. par. or a. [FEIGN.] feigned-diseases, s. pl. Civil or Military Law , & Med .: A simulated disease, a disease of which a person imitates the symptoms. Beggars sometimes do so to excite pity, soldiers to escape duty, prisoners to gain mitigation of punishment, and people hurt in railway or other accidents or in a aults, to create the belief that they are more seriously injured than is really the case. [MALINGERING.] feigned-i ue, s. Law : A proceeding in law whereby an action is supposed to be brought by consent of the parties, to determine some disputed right, without the formality or expense of pleading. fêign-ed-lỹ ( g silent), *fain-ed-ly, adv . [Eng. feigned; ly.] In a feigned or fictitious manner; in fiction; not in reality; not truly. "Such is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathens." -Bacon: E ays; Of Friendship.