faint vs feint
Definitions
adjective
- weak and likely to lose consciousness
- indistinctly understood or felt or perceived
- lacking clarity or distinctness
- deficient in magnitude; barely perceptible; lacking clarity or brightness or loudness etc
- lacking conviction or boldness or courage
verb
- pass out from weakness, physical or emotional distress due to a loss of blood supply to the brain
noun
- a spontaneous loss of consciousness caused by insufficient blood to the brain
Examples
Through her suit, Suzie Nova felt the diamantine exterior of the alien contraption throb faintly below her feet, alive with incomprehensible energies that course through it like blood through arteries.
There is a faint hissing sound and a burning smell.
Galanthus reginae-olgae is a reliable early flowerer, producing its faintly scented blooms as early as October.
Definitions
noun
- any distracting or deceptive maneuver (as a mock attack)
verb
- deceive by a mock action
Examples
I gave Isaac a dram to kep his heart up, and he sung and leuch as if he had been boozing with some of his drucken cronies; for feint a hair cared he about auld kirkyards, or vouts, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, with the wet grass growing over them.
Again and again, by feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle Sandel into leaping back, ducking, or countering.
He also goes on to describe in many places in his book, the way in which a rapier was used in delivering multiple feints.
