fake

• IPA^(key): /feɪ̯k/, enPR: fāk

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪk
• Homophone: PHEIC

The origin is not known with certainty, although first attested in 1775 C.E. in British criminals' slang.^[1] 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”).

fake (comparative faker or more fake, superlative fakest or most fake)

1. 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^[1]:

     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.

   • 2025 October 2, William Davies, “A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     The truth panic had the unwelcome side-effect of emboldening those it sought to oppose. “Fake” was one of Trump’s favourite slap-downs, especially to news outlets that reported unwelcome facts about him and his associates. A booming Maga media further amplified the president’s lies and denials.

2. (Of people) Insincere

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

fake (plural fakes)

1. 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.

2. (sports) A move meant to deceive an opposing player, used for gaining advantage for example when dribbling an opponent.
3. (archaic) A trick; a swindle

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

• → Japanese: フェイク (feiku)

fake (third-person singular simple present fakes, present participle faking, simple past and past participle faked)

1. (transitive) To make a counterfeit, to counterfeit, to forge, to falsify.
2. (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."

3. (archaic) To cheat; to swindle; to steal; to rob.
4. (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.

5. (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.

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

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

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

fake (plural fakes)

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

fake (third-person singular simple present fakes, present participle faking, simple past and past participle faked)

2. (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.

• 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.

• feak

• IPA^(key): /faˈke/ [fʌˈkɛ]
• Hyphenation: fa‧ke

faké (frequentative fakamfaké, autobenefactive fakkaasité)

1. (transitive) open
2. (transitive) begin
3. (transitive) expose
4. (transitive) spread out

• 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)‎^[3], Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis), page 275

From English fake.

fake

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

fake

1. inflection of faker:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Borrowed from English fake.

• IPA^(key): /fɛɪ̯k/, /feɪ̯k/, /feːk/
• (inflected forms) IPA^(key): /fɛɪ̯kə/, /feɪ̯kə/, /feːkə/

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

• Homophone: Fake

fake (strong nominative masculine singular faker, not comparable)

1. (informal, especially predicative) fake, sham, counterfeit

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 colloquially, in 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.

• “fake” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon

fake

1. knife

Unadapted borrowing from English fake.

• Hyphenation: fake

fake (invariable)

1. (Internet slang) fake, untrue, not genuine

   Synonym: falso

   Antonyms: verdadeiro, genuíno

fake m (plural fakes)

1. (Internet slang) a fake account in a social network or other online community; a sock puppet

• “fake”, in Dicionário inFormal (in Portuguese), 2006–2026