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Fain vs Feint - What's the difference?

fain | feint |

As adjectives the difference between fain and feint

is that fain is (label) well-pleased; glad; apt; wont; fond; inclined while feint is (obsolete) feigned; counterfeit.

As verbs the difference between fain and feint

is that fain is (archaic) to be delighted or glad; to rejoice while feint is to make a feint, or mock attack.

As an adverb fain

is (archaic) with joy; gladly.

As a noun feint is

a movement made to confuse the opponent, a dummy.

fain

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (label) Well-pleased; glad; apt; wont; fond; inclined.
  • *:
  • *:Thus Gawayne and Ector abode to gyder / For syre Ector wold not awey til Gawayne were hole / & the good kny?t Galahad rode so long tyll he came that nyghte to the Castel of Carboneck / & hit befelle hym thus / that he was benyghted in an hermytage / Soo the good man was fayne whan he sawe he was a knyght erraunt
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:Men and birds are fain of climbing high.
  • *(Jeremy Taylor) (1613–1677)
  • *:To a busy man, temptation is fain to climb up together with his business.
  • *(rfdate) (Dante Gabriel Rossetti), A Death-Parting , line 11
  • *:O love, of my death my life is fain ,
  • *1900 , (Ernest Dowson), To One in Bedlam , lines 9-10
  • *:O lamentable brother! if those pity thee, / Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
  • (label) Satisfied; contented.
  • *{{quote-book, year=2004, author=W. Ross Winterowd
  • , title= Searching for Faith: A Skeptic's Journey , publisher=Parlor Press, quotee=(John Donne), Holy Sonnet XIV , isbn=9781932559309, page=29 , passage=Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain ,}}

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (archaic) With joy; gladly.
  • * 1599 ,
  • LEONATO: I would fain know what you have to say.
  • * 1633 , , XIV
  • Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain ,/ But am betroth’d unto your enemy
  • * 1719 ,
  • The second thing I fain would have had was a tobacco-pipe, but it was impossible to me to make one…

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (archaic) To be delighted or glad; to rejoice
  • (archaic) To gladden
  • References

    Anagrams

    * ----

    feint

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make a feint, or mock attack.
  • (to make a counterfeit move to confuse an opponent) * Chinese: *: Mandarin: * Finnish: (t) (trans-mid) * Maori: (t), (t), (t), * Russian: * Swedish: (trans-bottom)

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (obsolete) Feigned; counterfeit.
  • * John Locke
  • Dressed up into any feint appearance of it.
  • (fencing, boxing, war) (of an attack) directed toward a different part from the intended strike
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A movement made to confuse the opponent, a dummy
  • That which is feigned; an assumed or false appearance; a pretense; a stratagem; a fetch.
  • * Spectator
  • Courtley's letter is but a feint to get off.
  • (fencing, boxing, war) An offensive movement resembling an attack in all but its continuance
  • The narrowest rule used in the production of lined writing paper (C19: Variant of FAINT)