as in to pretend
to take on a false or deceptive appearance
as an actress she had been trained to dissimulate, so she had no trouble hiding her true feelings offstage as well
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Recent Examples of dissimulate
The result is that Republican politicians dissimulate much more, and of course there is no comparable primary competition.
—
Tyler Cowen, Twin Cities, 5 July 2019
Tyler Cowen, Twin Cities, 5 July 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissimulate
pretend
Verb
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There wouldn’t have been any point to our pretending not to be Jewish, because everybody thought of us as Jewish and that would never change.—
Nicholas Lemann,
New Yorker,
21 Feb. 2026
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Custom Curtains When Windows Misbehave Standard sizes pretend every window is the same height, width, and position.—
Maria Williams,
Ascend Agency,
20 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Dissimulate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissimulate. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026.
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