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feignEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
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.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
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MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
verbexact headword
feign
To invent, fabricate, make a likeness, or pretend; borrowed through Anglo-French from Latin fingere, to shape or fashion.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
fiction
Invented narrative, imaginative creation, pretense, or legal assumption; borrowed through French from Latin fictio, an action of shaping, molding, or feigning.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗024
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
feign
invent; fabricate; pretend; give a false appearance
- DATE
- 13th century–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Anglo-French / Indo-European
feign-
stem used in feindre
- DATE
- Anglo-French bound stem
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Middle French / Indo-European
fiction
invention; feigning; pretense
- DATE
- Middle French
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Latin / Indo-European
fictiō
action of shaping or molding; feigning; pretense; legal fiction
- DATE
- Latin antiquity
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
035
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
resolvedestablishedexact word
Did feign originally mean only to lie?
No. Its recorded Middle English field includes make, fabricate, make a likeness, dissemble, and pretend.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Does feign descend from faint or feint?
No direct descent is established here. The root appendix groups them under the same nasalized shaping formation, while feign has its own documented French and Latin chain.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did fiction originally mean only an invented story?
No. Latin fictiō includes shaping or molding, feigning, pretense, and legal fiction; Middle English begins with invention of the mind.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 134GRADE Aexact ranked word
Feign once included making, not only pretending.
Middle English feynen could mean make, fabricate, or make a likeness as well as dissemble or pretend, continuing the fingere shaping family.
RANK 133GRADE Aranked reveal
Fiction is historically something shaped.
Latin fictiō names shaping or molding, feigning, and pretense before English literary narrative becomes one major center.
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BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
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