Faint

How to spell faint

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce faint

What does faint mean?

1. adjectiveBarely perceptible; not strong, bright, or distinct.
2. verbTo lose consciousness briefly because of a drop in blood supply to the brain.
3. adjectiveFeeling weak, dizzy, and close to losing consciousness.

Faint in a sentence

• adjective

  A faint smell of smoke drifted in from the kitchen.

• verb

  The heat in the crowded train made several passengers faint.

• adjective

  She felt faint after skipping breakfast and standing in the sun.

• adjective

  The old receipt showed only a faint outline of the printed total.

• verb

  Donors are warned they may faint if they stand up too quickly.

• adjective

  He grew faint at the sight of blood during the procedure.

Where does faint come from?

Language of origin: French

Faint arrived in English in the 1200s from Old French faint or feint, the past participle of feindre, meaning 'to feign' or 'to pretend'. That French verb came from the Latin fingere, which literally meant 'to shape, mould, or form', and by extension 'to invent or feign'. The earliest English sense was 'feigned' and then 'sluggish' or 'cowardly', reflecting the idea of someone who only pretends to make an effort; from there it drifted to 'lacking strength', and finally to the modern meanings of 'weak, dim, or barely perceptible' and 'to lose consciousness'. The very same Latin root sits inside fiction and figment, words about things that are shaped or invented. Crucially, faint shares its ancestry with its homophone feint, a feigned move in fencing or boxing, which is exactly why the two spellings are so easily swapped on the page.

How the word is built

• faint (from Old French feint, past participle of feindre 'to feign'); no affixes in the modern English form