What's the difference between feign and figment?

Feign


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To give a mental existence to, as to something not real or actual; to imagine; to invent; hence, to pretend; to form and relate as if true.
  • (v. t.) To represent by a false appearance of; to pretend; to counterfeit; as, to feign a sickness.
  • (v. t.) To dissemble; to conceal.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Activity peaked during the period corresponding to evening twilight and was negligible during the morning twilight period; in contrast, death feigning peaked during the morning twilight period.
  • (2) Simple maximal grip force measurements are insensitive to the different motor strategies used in maximal and submaximal efforts and may provide little evidence for the detection of feigning.
  • (3) The hypocritical Greens remained absolutely silent while these projects were advanced, but now they feign an interest.
  • (4) Expressions that included muscular activity around the eyes in addition to the smiling lips occurred more often when people were actually enjoying themselves as compared with when enjoyment was feigned to conceal negative emotions.
  • (5) When this happens, it is tempting to nod sagely and feign comprehension.
  • (6) But arguably neither is scrapping them, since – even if you could somehow get a political mandate to scrap every private and grammar school in Britain tomorrow – parents would always find a way to game the system; we’d still have selection by house price, or by willingness to feign religious conviction, or some other ingenious new wheeze.
  • (7) Chelsea only briefly threatened to inflict a fourth league defeat of the season on Leicester, Nemanja Matic feigning to shoot from the edge of the area and luring Jeffrey Schlupp to ground as he sought to block.
  • (8) The possibilities of making less errors in analysis are being discussed and the feigned surface pollution is calculated.
  • (9) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
  • (10) When Weekly Beast called Stutch he varied his technique, at least feigning politeness.
  • (11) Supporters of the accused men say their alleged crimes were trumped up by a dictatorial regime which feigned openness during the electoral campaign only to brutally suppress dissent when it saw the scale of public anger.
  • (12) The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless.
  • (13) Verbal reports of such pain are considered simply a manifestation of 'feigned' illness.
  • (14) Munchausen's syndrome by proxy is a relatively new diagnosis for a unique form of child abuse that involves a parent who creates or feigns illness in his or her child, and presents a "sick child" to the medical profession for assessment and treatment.
  • (15) Symptom-validity testing has been used to detect feigning in patients claiming sensory and memory deficits.
  • (16) Diverticle formation is feigned by widening, predominantly of the outlets, which could be traced into the muscular wall layers.
  • (17) A description of the aggressive behaviour is given for threatening, fighting and feigned attacking.
  • (18) This ranges across a spectrum from benign use of feigned or alleged symptoms, malingering, conversion reactions and hysterical manifestations to the severe and flamboyant clinical presentation of the Munchausen Syndrome.
  • (19) Asked what his lasting memory of the World Cup would be, Mujica said: “Fifa are a bunch of old sons of bitches.” The president then covered his mouth to feign shock at what he had just said, but when asked if he wanted to rectify his comments, he responded: “Publish it.” Read the full story here .
  • (20) • Pistorius' retching and crying was not feigned , Vorster said: he could not fake pallor .

Figment


Definition:

  • (n.) An invention; a fiction; something feigned or imagined.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) You can imagine how frustrating this is for teenagers like myself who make a point of being politically engaged, only to find that our interest is seen as a figment of someone’s imagination.
  • (2) With no Hull player, let alone the official body that monitors the suspension bridge, remotely aware of such an incident, The Observer put it to Brown that the apparently suicidal female was a figment of his imagination.
  • (3) Any shift the public may detect in immigration proposals advanced by Donald Trump is a figment of the imagination, top Trump surrogates said in a coordinated maneuver on Sunday.
  • (4) He wanted so much to convince his mates that he really had spied a miracle and to make sure that his normally placid mind had not fallen victim of some strange figment of the imagination, a confidence trick, a sudden mirage brought on by the unrelenting rays of the sun.'
  • (5) Earlier, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, John Redwood, the former cabinet minister, described claims by Ukip donor Stuart Wheeler that up to eight Tories were about to defect as "a figment of Ukip's imagination", as party chiefs sought to calm the party's nerves.
  • (6) Show us another player who has radiated as much influence as Eric Cantona and we will show you a figment of your imagination.
  • (7) Many tabloid newspapers have joined in, giving the impression that rape is simply a figment of mad women's imaginations.
  • (8) It makes this image even more of a figment of my imagination.
  • (9) The lengthy scenes of flatly described sex, commonly with two women at once, read like pornographic figments.
  • (10) Redwood dismissed the possibility of eight defectors when he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: "The so-called eight are a figment of Ukip's imagination.
  • (11) Yes, although in this case, I’ve made clever use of ambiguity, because “selfie teeth” are often a figment of your imagination.
  • (12) But he described the idea of welfare tourism as a "figment of some politician's imagination" because Poles in Britain worked and sent back earnings that have been taxed.
  • (13) March of the makers remains a figment of Osborne's imagination Read more “A lot of this is driven by the ongoing weakness of global commodity prices.
  • (14) A claim by Ukip that eight more MPs are thinking of defecting to the party has been dismissed as a figment of the party's imagination by John Redwood, a former Tory cabinet minister and leading Eurosceptic.
  • (15) Figments of imagination and previous experiences enter into each clinic room emotional situation, and the apprehensions of the child, the parent and the doctor must be anticipated and acknowledged.
  • (16) Such an investigation would indeed be odious, but it's a figment of Boal's imagination.
  • (17) It can no longer be rubbished as some spurious subjective figment of the victim’s “paranoid” imagination, which sadly is an attitude that extends far beyond actual abusers.
  • (18) We aim this useful figment at an (equally hypothetical) photosynthetic system all of whose units are set up to perform the same primary reaction.
  • (19) She is an outsider, a "difficult" woman whose old comrades from the communist party still smart from her brisk re-evaluation of the movement as a figment of their own "mass psychopathology".
  • (20) As for the march of the makers, that remains a figment of the chancellor’s imagination.