# fake
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /feɪ̯k/, enPR: fāk
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -eɪk
* Homophone: PHEIC

### Etymology 1

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”).
Akin to Dutch veeg (“a swipe”), Dutch vegen (“to sweep, wipe”); German fegen (“to sweep, to polish”). Compare also Old English fācn (“deceit, fraud”). Perhaps related also to Old Norse fjúka (“to fade, vanquish, disappear”), Old Norse feikn (“strange, scary, unnatural”).

#### Adjective

fake (comparative faker or more fake, superlative fakest or most fake)
* Not real; false, fraudulent.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:fake
    Antonyms: authentic, genuine
    Which fur coat looks fake?
** 1988 November 25, Caryn James, “Ayn Rand Adaptation By Italian”, in The New York Times‎:Seeing Rossano Brazzi play an aristocratic White Russian, standing in the fakest snow that wartime supplies could buy, may be the most peculiar twist of all in the curious story of how Ayn Rand's autobiographical first novel came to the screen.
* (of people) Insincere

##### Derived terms

* facon
* fake and gay
* fake-ass
* fakeaway
* fake-bake
* fakebit
* fake book
* Fakebook
* fakecel
* fakeclaim
* fake fan
* fake-fan
* fakefan
* fakeful
* fakegasm
* fake geek girl
* fakehood
* fakeitude
* fakelore
* fakely
* fakemail
* fakement
* Fakémon
* fakeness
* fake news
* fakepreneur
* fake Shemp
* fakeship
* fakester
* Fakestine
* Fakestinian
* fakestream
* fake-tanned
* fake the funk
* Faketoshi
* fakey
* fakie
* faky
* finstagram
* flog
* foob
* for fake
* frass
* French fake
* genuine fake
* head fake
* Jafaican
* ogle fake
* ogle fake riah
* ogle riah fake
* outfake
* pump fake
* pump-fake
* semifake
* superfake

##### Descendants

* → Russian: фейк (fejk)
* → Turkish: feyk
* → Ukrainian: фейк (fejk)

##### Translations
#### Noun

fake (plural fakes)
* Something which is not genuine, or is presented fraudulently.
    I suspect this passport is a fake.
** 1922, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Coming of the Fairies:Among other interesting and weighty opinions, which were in general agreement with our contentions, was one by Mr. H. A. Staddon of Goodmayes, a gentleman who had made a particular hobby of fakes in photography. His report is too long and too technical for inclusion, but, under the various headings of composition, dress, development, density, lighting, poise, texture, plate, atmosphere, focus, halation, he goes very completely into the evidence, coming to the final conclusion that when tried by all these tests the chances are not less than 80 per cent. in favour of authenticity.
* (sports) A move meant to deceive an opposing player, used for gaining advantage for example when dribbling an opponent.
* (archaic) A trick; a swindle

##### Synonyms

* (soccer move): feint
* (ice hockey move): deke

##### Derived terms

* antifake
* deepfake
* fakeaway
* semifake
* superfake

##### Descendants

* → Japanese: フェイク (feiku)

##### Translations
#### Verb

fake (third-person singular simple present fakes, present participle faking, simple past and past participle faked)
* (transitive) To make a counterfeit, to counterfeit, to forge, to falsify.
* (transitive) To make a false display of, to affect, to feign, to simulate.
    to fake a marriage
    to fake happiness
    to fake a smile
** 2013, Jocelyn Samara D., Rain, volume 1, →ISBN, page 193:"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."
* (archaic) To cheat; to swindle; to steal; to rob.
* (archaic) To modify fraudulently, so as to make an object appear better or other than it really is
** 1944, George Henderson, The Farming Ladder:He had a hundred similar tricks, but I never knew him fake a horse, or sell one as sound if it was not.
* (music, ambitransitive) To improvise, in jazz.
** 1994, ITA Journal, volume 22, page 20:Occasionally the opportunity arises to stand up and "fake" a jazz standard.
** Denning, cited in 2020, Matt Brennan, Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit (page 110)
    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.

##### Synonyms

* (modify fraudulently): adulterate
* (make a false display): pass off, pose

##### Derived terms

* fakeable
* fake bad
* fake book
* fake good
* fake it
* fake it till one makes it
* fake it until one makes it
* fake out
* faker
* fakery
* fake the fatcha
* fake up
* outfake
* unfaked

##### Descendants

* → Cantonese: fake (“to fool; to deceive”)
* → French: faker

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Middle English faken (“to coil a rope”).

#### Noun

fake (plural fakes)
* (nautical) One of the circles or windings of a cable or hawser, as it lies in a coil; a single turn or coil.

##### Translations
#### Verb

fake (third-person singular simple present fakes, present participle faking, simple past and past participle faked)
* (nautical) To coil (a rope, line, or hawser), by winding alternately in opposite directions, in layers usually of zigzag or figure of eight form, to prevent twisting when running out.

##### Translations
### Further reading

* fake on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* “fake”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “fake”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

### References

* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “fake”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

### Anagrams

* feak

## Afar
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /faˈke/ [fʌˈkɛ]
* Hyphenation: fa‧ke

### Verb

faké (frequentative fakamfaké, autobenefactive fakkaasité)
* (transitive) open
* (transitive) begin
* (transitive) expose
* (transitive) spread out

#### Conjugation
### References

* E. M. Parker, R. J. Hayward (1985) “fake”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN
* Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015) L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie)‎, Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis), page 275

## Chinese
### Etymology

From English fake.

### Pronunciation

* Cantonese (Jyutping): fik$^1$
* Cantonese
** (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
*** Jyutping: fik$^1$
*** Yale: fīk
*** Cantonese Pinyin: fik$^7$
*** Guangdong Romanization: fig$^1$
*** Sinological IPA : /fɪk̚⁵/

### Verb

fake
* (Hong Kong Cantonese, transitive) to fool; to deceive (such as by presenting fake or ingenuine information)
** For quotations using this term, see Citations:fake.

## French
### Verb

fake
* inflection of faker:
** first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
** second-person singular imperative

## German
### Etymology

Borrowed from English fake.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /fɛɪ̯k/, /feɪ̯k/, /feːk/
* (inflected forms) IPA: /fɛɪ̯kə/, /feɪ̯kə/, /feːkə/
* Audio:(file)
* Homophone: Fake

### Adjective

fake (strong nominative masculine singular faker, not comparable)
* (informal) fake, sham, counterfeit

#### Usage notes

In most cases corresponding to hypothetical English occurrences which would be deemed adjectives, the German is part of a compound with the noun Fake, and the existence of such an adjective is not widely accepted, however at least in the colloquial of the fashion scene, in reference to counterfeits, it is a fully declined adjective; cf. woke, and anywhere else where there is a heavy influx of English there may be at least predicative-only use.

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “fake” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon

## Kristang
### Noun

fake
* knife

## Portuguese
### Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English fake.

### Pronunciation

* (Brazil) IPA: /ˈfej.ki/ [ˈfeɪ̯.ki], /ˈfejk/ [ˈfeɪ̯k]
* (Brazil) IPA: /ˈfej.ki/ [ˈfeɪ̯.ki], /ˈfejk/ [ˈfeɪ̯k]
** (Southern Brazil) IPA: /ˈfejk/ [ˈfeɪ̯k], /ˈfej.ki/ [ˈfeɪ̯.ki]
* Hyphenation: fake

### Adjective

fake (invariable)
* (Internet slang) fake, untrue, not genuine
    Synonym: falso
    Antonyms: verdadeiro, genuíno

#### Related terms

* fake news

### Noun

fake m (plural fakes)
* (Internet slang) a fake account in a social network or other online community; a sock puppet

### Further reading

* “fake”, in Dicionário inFormal (in Portuguese), 2006–2025