What does feigner mean?
A feigner is a person who deliberately pretends to feel, suffer, or be something they are not — feigning illness, grief, ignorance, or innocence. The word is the agent noun of the verb 'feign', which came into Middle English from Old French 'feindre', itself descended from the Latin verb 'fingere', meaning to shape or mould. That same Latin root gives us fiction, figment, and figure, so a feigner is, quite literally, someone who shapes falsehoods. Feigner is relatively rare in everyday speech compared with its parent verb, and it tends to appear in formal, legal, medical, or literary contexts where the act of sustained deception is being named rather than merely described. Its connotation is firmly disapproving: it implies conscious, often manipulative dishonesty rather than innocent playacting. Close synonyms include pretender, impostor, and dissembler.
nounA person who feigns; someone who pretends or fakes something, such as an emotion, illness, or identity.
- A person who pretends or fakes something, such as illness, emotion, or ignorance.
"The coroner concluded that the patient was a feigner, deliberately exaggerating his symptoms to avoid military service."
"Doctors grew suspicious when they realized the man was a feigner who had no actual symptoms at all."
"In court, he was exposed as a feigner whose grief had been nothing more than performance."
Standard plural; used when referring to multiple people who pretend.
"The clinic was notorious for attracting feigners seeking to dodge the draft."
A feigner is, etymologically speaking, someone who 'shapes' reality into a lie — the word shares its Latin root with fiction and figment.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of feigner
Feigner derives from the Middle English verb 'feignen', borrowed from Old French 'feindre' (to feign, shirk), which comes from the Latin 'fingere', meaning to shape, mould, or form. Because shaping clay and shaping a falsehood were conceptually linked in Latin, 'fingere' also produced English words such as fiction, figment, figure, and effigy. Feigner arose in English as the regular agent noun of 'feign', denoting the person who performs the act of pretending.
Related word forms
How feigner is actually used
Feigner is a formal, somewhat literary agent noun derived from the verb 'feign'. It carries a strongly negative connotation of deliberate deception, and in modern usage it appears far less often than the verb itself; speakers usually rephrase as 'someone who feigns' or use synonyms like faker or pretender.
Easily confused with feigner
A feint is a deceptive movement or mock attack (a noun in its own right), while a feigner is the person doing the pretending.