Faking

How to spell faking

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce faking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does faking mean?

1. verbPretending to have a feeling, condition, or skill, or producing a counterfeit version of something, in order to deceive.

Faking in a sentence

• The auditor suspected the manager was faking the expense receipts.

• He called in sick, though his colleagues knew he was faking a cough.

Where does faking come from?

Language of origin: Other

This is the present participle of the verb 'fake', a word whose origins are surprisingly murky. 'Fake' surfaced in English thieves' and criminal slang in the late 1700s, where 'to fake' meant to do something, to shape, or to tamper with an object so as to deceive. Its deeper source is uncertain, though many scholars connect it to the older slang verb 'feague', meaning to beat or to dress up an animal to make it look livelier for sale, which in turn may trace back to the German 'fegen', meaning to sweep or polish. From that underworld sense of dressing things up to deceive, 'fake' broadened in the 1800s into the general meaning of counterfeiting or pretending. The spelling stays regular when '-ing' is added: the silent final 'e' of 'fake' is dropped before the suffix, giving 'faking' rather than 'fakeing'.

How the word is built

• fake (counterfeit, pretend)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)