fake

1 of 5

adjective

faker; fakest
: 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
From the well-known to the unknown, fake news, misinformation and hate rhetoric are causing harm to many individuals.Dolar Popat

fake

2 of 5

noun (1)

: 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

fake

3 of 5

verb (1)

faked; faking

transitive verb

1
: to alter, manipulate, or treat so as to give a spuriously (see spurious sense 2) genuine appearance to : doctor
faked the lab results
2
: counterfeit, simulate, concoct
faked a heart attack
3
: to deceive (an opponent) in a sports contest by means of a fake (see fake entry 2 sense c)
4
: improvise, ad-lib
whistle a few bars … and I'll fake the restRobert Sylvester

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.
faker noun
fakery noun

fake

4 of 5

noun (2)

: one loop of a coil (as of ship's rope or a fire hose) coiled free for running

fake

5 of 5

verb (2)

faked; faking

transitive verb

: to coil in fakes
Choose the Right Synonym for fake

imposture, fraud, sham, fake, humbug, counterfeit mean a thing made to seem other than it is.

imposture applies to any situation in which a spurious object or performance is passed off as genuine.

their claim of environmental concern is an imposture

fraud usually implies a deliberate perversion of the truth.

the diary was exposed as a fraud

sham applies to fraudulent imitation of a real thing or action.

condemned the election as a sham

fake implies an imitation of or substitution for the genuine but does not necessarily imply dishonesty.

these jewels are fakes; the real ones are in the vault

humbug suggests elaborate pretense usually so flagrant as to be transparent.

creating publicity by foisting humbugs on a gullible public

counterfeit applies especially to the close imitation of something valuable.

20-dollar bills that were counterfeits

Examples of fake in a Sentence

Adjective That blood is clearly fake. He was wearing a fake mustache.
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
Chief Schultz went on to say uniformed and undercover police will be looking for fake IDs, causing public disturbances or fighting, and public indecency. Chris Eberhart, Fox News, 4 Mar. 2024 Others, meanwhile, told the original poster that a specific type of individual had likely sent them the fake heart piece. Nicholas Rice, Peoplemag, 3 Mar. 2024 Onscreen, as Elena, Winslet is coifed and practically corseted into form-fitting skirt suits, with lacquered fake nails. Susan Dominus, New York Times, 3 Mar. 2024 Hence the classic materials like tweed, fake fur and pearls. Luke Leitch, Vogue, 2 Mar. 2024 Arizona fake electors:Investigator predicts case won't wrap until March A Trump ally and one of the most conservative Arizona lawmakers, Kern made his distaste of Hobbs known during her annual address to lawmakers in January, turning his back and giving her policy priorities a thumbs down. Stacey Barchenger, The Arizona Republic, 1 Mar. 2024 Schiaparelli has always embraced surrealism and the absurd, including the infamous Kylie Jenner lion head dress and Kendall Jenner's dress made entirely of fake nails. Kara Nesvig, Allure, 1 Mar. 2024 But the investments are fake, and once victims send enough funds, the scammers disappear. Zeke Faux, Fortune, 29 Feb. 2024 But things get messy when Mike Martin, the inspiration for her fake paramour, comes back into her life. Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 29 Feb. 2024
Noun
The photos appear to be an attempt to inflate Trump’s popularity with the Black community, but the photos are nothing but fakes. Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo, Quartz, 4 Mar. 2024 Along with the graphic images of Swift, other celebrity fakes — including a new comedy special by the deceased George Carlin — have become increasingly prominent. USA TODAY, 23 Feb. 2024 The fake, which appeared to show the 26-year-old naked and masturbating, was copied and reposted so many times that Althoff’s name was trending on the platform. Drew Harwell, Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2024 More:Taylor Swift, deep fakes, free speech and the push in Tennessee to regulate AI Other bills would create criminal penalties for using AI to generate child or revenge pornography. Journal Sentinel, 20 Feb. 2024 Only Murray didn’t bite on the fake, swatting the ball away with his left hand. Sean Keeler, The Denver Post, 15 Feb. 2024 All three of these erroneous features were present in some of the fakes. Jordan Michael Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Feb. 2024 Nebraska The Nebraska legislature is considering two bills that ban the dissemination of AI-generate deep fakes 60 days before an election and prohibits explicitly deep fakes that intend to mislead voters by misrepresenting the secretary of state and election commissioners. USA TODAY, 19 Feb. 2024 Complicating matters, Rybak says, was that the courts had mistakenly ruled that certain fakes were authentic—which collectors, gallery owners and sellers sometimes pointed to in legitimizing their fakes. Jordan Michael Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Feb. 2024
Verb
As if Logan Paul’s heel work from Elimination Chamber couldn’t be more brilliant, WWE aired footage of Paul stalling for time by faking a back injury. Alfred Konuwa, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024 Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. Sarah Yang, Sunset Magazine, 7 Feb. 2024 Police were only called after the woman faked a call to the man’s actual apartment managers and instead called her husband, who phoned authorities for help. Jakob Rodgers, The Mercury News, 20 Feb. 2024 Instead of investigating the sellers of Morrisseau fakes, as the RCMP had done, Rybak focused on the forgers, beginning with people like Thompson. Jordan Michael Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Feb. 2024 The drive featured two third-down conversions and a fourth-and-1 where Travis Kelce was set in motion and Mahomes faked the handoff to Isiah Pacheco, then jetted forward to move the chains. Victoria Hernandez, USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2024 The doctor was told there was a high suspicion that Serna was faking. Teri Figueroa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Feb. 2024 In short, two constituencies: those who baked and those who faked. Charlotte Druckman, Charlotte Observer, 31 Jan. 2024 After Cleveland’s Jim Brown, the Rookie of the Year, ran for a touchdown to keep the game within reach, the Lions faked a field goal and Rote lofted a touchdown pass to a wide-open receiver. Bill Morris, Detroit Free Press, 28 Jan. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fake.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Adjective

derivative of fake entry 2

Note: Not recorded as an adjective before 1879. 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 uncertain origin

Note: The verb fake perhaps first appears in print, in the form faik, in 1810. In James Hardy Vaux's "A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language" (vol. 2 of Hardy's Memoirs, London, 1819), it receives a very general definition: "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" was perhaps part of its original meaning. Much earlier is the agent noun faker, defined as "maker" in a list of "Canting Terms used by Beggars, Vagabonds, Cheaters, Cripples and Bedlams." in Randle Holme's The Academy of Armory (Chester, 1688) (a book about heraldry that includes a miscellany of information having nothing to do with heraldry). Along with faker Holme lists Ben-Fakers, "Counterfeiters of Passes and Seals" (ben is defined as "good"). This expression occurs earlier as ben-feaker in Thomas Dekker's pamphlet on cant, O per se O. Or A new cryer of Lanthorne and candle-light (London, 1612): "Of Ben-feakers of Jybes …They who are Counterfeiters of Passeports, are called Ben-feakers , that is to say, Good-Makers." (It is possible that Holme simply copied his entries from Dekker.) The noun feaker/faker implies a corresponding verb feak/fake "make," for which there appears to be no certain evidence. There is feague, fegue "to beat, whip" (earliest in the compound bumfeage) and "to wear out, bring about the ruin of," which are colloquial—the second sense is only attested in Restoration drama—but not argot, and which have a voiced velar consonant (aside from a single occurrence of a participle feakt). A suggestion dating back to Nathan Bailey's An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (4th edition, 1728) is that this word is borrowed from Dutch vegen "to sweep"; compare also German fegen "to wipe, clean, sweep." For further discussion see Anatoly Liberman, "A fake etymology of the word fake," OUPblog, August 23, 2017.

Noun (2)

probably derivative of fake entry 5

Verb (2)

Middle English faken, of obscure origin

First Known Use

Adjective

1879, in the meaning defined above

Noun (1)

1829, in the meaning defined above

Verb (1)

1819, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

Noun (2)

1627, in the meaning defined above

Verb (2)

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of fake was in the 15th century

Dictionary Entries Near fake

Cite this Entry

“Fake.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fake. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

fake

1 of 3 adjective
: not genuine : phony

fake

2 of 3 noun
1
: an imitation that is passed off as genuine : counterfeit
2
: impostor
a medical fake

fake

3 of 3 verb
faked; faking
1
: to change or treat so as to make false
faked the results
2
: counterfeit entry 1 sense 1
fake a rare first edition
3
faker noun
fakery
ˈfā-k(ə-)rē
noun

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