\ ˈfāk
\
: not true, real, or genuine : counterfeit, sham
He was wearing a fake mustache. She held up the bowl to the window light and smiled her fakest smile yet …— Lee Durkee
: one that is not what it purports to be: such as
a
: a worthless imitation passed off as genuine
The signature was a fake.
b
: impostor, charlatan
He told everyone that he was a lawyer, but he was just a fake.
c
: a simulated movement in a sports contest (such as a pretended kick, pass, or jump or a quick movement in one direction before going in another) designed to deceive an opponent
d
: a device or apparatus used by a magician to achieve the illusion of magic in a trick
intransitive verb
1
: to engage in faking something : pretend
—sometimes used with it if you don't have the answers, fake it
2
: to give a fake to an opponent
The runner faked left and then cut to the right.
: one loop of a coil (as of ship's rope or a fire hose) coiled free for running
History and Etymology for fake
Adjective
derivative of fake entry 2
Note:
Not recorded as an adjective before the 1880's. The supposed use by the British general Richard Howe in a dispatch from Boston to the Secretary of State dated December 3, 1775 ("So many artifices have been practiced upon Strangers under the appearance of Friendship, fake Pilots &c."; Report Concerning Canadian Archives for the Year 1904, Ottawa, 1905, p. 355) is most likely a misreading (perhaps for faux or false?).
Noun (1)
derivative of fake entry 3
Verb (1)
originally underworld argot, of obscure origin
Note:
The verb fake first appears in print in James Hardy Vaux's "A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language," in vol. 2 of Hardy's Memoirs (London, 1819). The meanings given by Hardy are extremely general: "a word so variously used, that I can only illustrate it by a few examples. To fake any person or place, may signify to rob them; to fake a person, may also imply to shoot, wound, or cut; to fake a man out and out, is to kill him; a man who inflicts wounds upon, or otherwise disfigures, himself, for any sinister purpose, is said to have faked himself…to fake a screeve, is to write a letter, or other paper; to fake a screw, is to shape out a skeleton or false key, for the purpose of screwing a particular place; to fake a cly, is to pick a pocket; etc., etc., etc." (p. 170). However, Hardy also records bit-faking "coining base money" and both Vaux and the earlier Lexicon Balatronicum (London, 1811, a revision of Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785) record fakement in the sense "forgery"—so the sense "to simulate, counterfeit" may have been part of its original meaning. Attempts have been made to link fake with earlier argot fegue and (rarely) feak "to beat, whip, wear out, bring about the ruin
