fake
Forms
- Comparative
- faker
- Superlative
- fakest
- Plural
- fakes
- present (v1)
- fake
- past (v2)
- faked
- past participle (v3)
- faked
- present participle
- faking
- 3rd person singular
- fakes
Definitions
1.Not real; false, fraudulent.
- Which fur coat looks fake?
2.Insincere
1.Something which is not genuine, or is presented fraudulently.
- I suspect this passport is a fake.
2.A move meant to deceive an opposing player, used for gaining advantage for example when dribbling an opponent.
3.One of the circles or windings of a cable or hawser, as it lies in a coil; a single turn or coil.
1.To make a counterfeit, to counterfeit, to forge, to falsify.
2.To make a false display of, to affect, to feign, to simulate.
- "She constantly faked being sick, and perhaps mistakenly, I indulged her more than I should have, pretending I couldn't tell. But I AM a teacher myself, so it's kind of hard to just let this slide."
3.To improvise, in jazz.
- Occasionally the opportunity arises to stand up and "fake" a jazz standard.
- In the face of this print music culture, 'faking' was the ability, at once respected and disrespected, to improvise a song (or a part in an arrangement) without reading the notation.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3409
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
The origin is not known with certainty, although first attested in 1775 C.E. in British criminals' slang. It is probably from feak, feague (“to give a better appearance through artificial means, spruce up, embellish”), itself from German Low German fegen, from Middle Low German vēgen, from Old Saxon fegōn, from Proto-West Germanic *fegōn (“to clean up, polish”).