fake

1 of 5

adjective

ˈfāk 

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 rest

—Robert 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

ˈfā-k(ə-)rē 

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

Synonyms

Adjective

• artificial
• bogus
• dummy
• ersatz
• factitious
• false
• faux
• imitation
• imitative
• man-made
• mimic
• mock
• pretend
• sham
• simulated
• substitute
• synthetic

Noun (1)

• counterfeit
• forgery
• hoax
• humbug
• phony
• phoney
• sham

Verb (1)

• counterfeit
• forge
• phony

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.

Noun (1)

experts declared that one of the museum's prized paintings was actually a fake

a hidden-camera investigation revealed that the so-called psychic was a fake

Verb (1)

pranksters faked giant footprints and then claimed that they had seen Bigfoot

while running for class president, Dan was not above faking friendship with people just to get their votes

if you give me the gist of the plan, I can probably fake enough for the speech

the running back faked the defense by stepping to his left and then quickly cutting to the right

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

The claim: Image shows UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect’s fake ID A Dec. 9 Threads post (direct link, archive link) shows an image of what at first glance appears to be a Hawaii driver’s license with a photo of the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. —Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY, 13 Dec. 2024

The porch is covered in fake roses, from its pillars to ceiling to gable, where Cantabrana places a small Guadalupe statue in its apex. —Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 13 Dec. 2024

Noun

Marino took the snap, pretended to spike the ball to stop the clock, and threw a touchdown pass to Ingram, who was open after rookie cornerback Aaron Glenn bought Marino's fake. —Jim Reineking, USA TODAY, 6 Dec. 2024

But evidence compiled by academics in the U.S. and Canada as well as government institutions such as Colombia's health authorities is increasingly showing that some generics are of dubious quality, contaminated or outright fake. —David Cox, NPR, 5 Dec. 2024

Verb

That year, the Allstate Insurance Co. sued Nassiri in federal court, accusing him of running a fraudulent scheme to fake medical records and bill the company for unnecessary tests and treatments provided to more than 150 people who’d been involved in car accidents. —Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News, 11 Dec. 2024

The case has raised questions about the motivations and consequences of faking one's death, as well as the financial and emotional toll such incidents can place on law enforcement and loved ones. —Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 11 Dec. 2024

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

Phrases Containing fake

• fake it
• fake out
• pump fake
• up-fake

Kids Definition

fake

1 of 3 adjective

ˈfāk 

: 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

: pretend entry 1 sense 1, simulate

fake surprise

faker noun

fakery

ˈfā-k(ə-)rē

noun