SuaviloquyToday’s word

feign

Feign, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Feigned; p. pr. & vb. n. Feigning.]

Etymology: [OE. feinen, F. feindre (p. pr. feignant), fr. L. fingere; akin to L. figura figure,and E. dough. See Dough, and cf. Figure, Faint, Effigy, Fiction.]

1. 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. There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. Neh. vi. 8. The poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods. Shak.

2. To represent by a false appearance of; to pretend; to counterfeit; as, to feign a sickness. Shak.

3. To dissemble; to conceal. [Obs.] Spenser.

Shades of meaning

Fernald has no entry of its own for feign; he lists it under assume.

Where he writes about it:

If he takes to himself the credit and appearance of qualities he does not possess, he is said to affect or feign, or to pretend to, the character he thus assumes. — from assume