(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 .
Wiseacre
Definition:
(v.) A learned or wise man.
(v.) One who makes undue pretensions to wisdom; a would-be-wise person; hence, in contempt, a simpleton; a dunce.
Example Sentences:
(1) For too long, Chris Bosh has been attacked as soft, in often borderline sexist terms, by everyone from Shaquille O'Neal (who memorably called him "the RuPaul of big men" back in his actually amusing pre-analyst days) to wiseacres on Twitter .
(2) Another wiseacre has convinced himself that making people laugh is exerting some kind of power over them.
(3) (The wiseacres on Twitter suggested an alternate theory: Bryant just didn't want to be stuck in the locker room with Howard for the rest of the game and, quite frankly, who could blame him?)
(4) Dane DeHaan, John C Reilly, Molly Shannon and a lot of other people you recognize co-star in this story of a wiseacre girl who becomes a zombie.