[f. as prec. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FEIGN in various senses; an instance of this. Without († but) feigning: unfeignedly, sincerely.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, I. 74.
| And he suld swer that, but fenȝeyng, | |
| He suld that arbytre disclar. |
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 341. He was clepid þe pope, and heed of al hooli Chirche; and aftirward camen oþer names bi feynyng of ypocritis.
c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., 1556, Hypsipyle and Medea. With feynynge, & with every subtyl dede.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst. (Surtees), 209.
| Tryp on thi tose, without any fenyng | |
| Thou has made many glose with thy fals talkyng. |
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xvi. 65. That yf it were aperceyued by some waye men shold wene that it were a manere of a feynynge.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 186. Craftie and imagined faynings.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., III. i. 110.
| ’Twas neuer merry world, | |
| Since lowly feigning was call’d complement. |
1636. B. Jonson, Discov., Wks. (Rtldg.), 761/2. His [the poet’s] art, an art of imitation or feigning; expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony, according to Aristotle.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 91. The Lombards possess the skill to please you without feigning; and so artless are their manners, you cannot even suspect them of insincerity.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 143, The Republic, Introduction. Poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning.
† b. Feigning of person: personification. rare.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 283. S. John by a fayning of person sayth, from whose face fledde away both heauen and earth.
† 2. quasi-concr. A creation or production (of the mind); an assumption, fiction, fable. Obs.
1388. Wyclif, Jer. l. 38. The lond … hath glorie in false feynyngis.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, I. iv. (1544), 6 b. Of poetes their feyning to vnfolde.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 141/2. The like fainings and monstrous miracles.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, II. 350. All which fainings … Josephus and Tertullian have sufficiently answered.
1627. Speed, England, xxv. § 3. Poets in their faynings will haue the Nymphs residence in shady greene groues.
