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PlainSpell

faint

/feɪnt/adjective, noun, verb

faint is spelled F-A-I-N-T: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 6.0 times per million words in written English, the 9,878th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “faint vs feint” about 1,000 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, faint means “Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in faint?

Letters5: F-A-I-N-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing6.0 times per million words; the 9,878th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is faint?

Faint appears 6.0 times per million words in written English, the 9,878th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce faint?

  • US /feɪnt/

Faint has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-feint.wav, En-us-faint.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with faint

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

faint vs feint1,000 G

Sounds like: feint (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with faint?

2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as faint from its last stressed vowel (/eɪnt/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: fitna, fanti, finta.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of faint

  • fainter comparative
  • faintest superlative
  • feint
  • faints plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • fainting participle, present
  • fainted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does faint mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness

    I felt faint after my fifth gin and tonic.

  2. 2

    Lacking courage, spirit, or energy; cowardly; dejected.

  3. 3

    Barely perceptible; not bright, or loud, or sharp.

    There was a faint red light in the distance.

  4. 4

    Performed, done, or acted, weakly; not exhibiting vigor, strength, or energy.

    faint efforts

  5. 5

    Slight; minimal.

    a faint chance

  6. 6

    archaicSickly, so as to make a person feel faint.

noun

  1. 1

    The act of fainting, syncope.

    She suffered another faint.

  2. 2

    rareThe state of one who has fainted; a swoon.

verb

  1. 1

    To lose consciousness through a lack of oxygen or nutrients to the brain, usually as a result of suddenly reduced blood flow (may be caused by emotional trauma, loss of blood or various medical conditions).

    A fainting fit.

  2. 2

    To lose courage or spirit; to become depressed or despondent.

  3. 3

    To decay; to disappear; to vanish.

    November 12, 1711, Alexander Pope, letter to Henry Cromwell Gilded clouds, while we gaze upon them, faint before the eye.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Faint in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfaible, faire un malaise (lacking strength; inclined to lose consciousness), craintif, timoré (wanting in courage), évanouissement (the act of fainting), s'évanouir (to lose consciousness)
Germankraftlos, schwach (lacking strength; inclined to lose consciousness), ängstlich (wanting in courage), Ohnmacht (the act of fainting), unsicher, unentschlossen (lacking distinctness, hardly perceptible)
Portugueselânguido, débil (lacking strength; inclined to lose consciousness), pávido (wanting in courage), desmaio, chilique (the act of fainting), tênue (lacking distinctness, hardly perceptible)
Spanishdébil (lacking strength; inclined to lose consciousness), tenue, apagado, mortecino, apenas perceptible, apenas visible (lacking distinctness, hardly perceptible)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does faint come from?

From Middle English faynt, feynt (“weak; feeble”), from Old French faint, feint (“feigned; negligent; sluggish”), past participle of feindre, faindre (“to feign; sham; work negligently”), from Latin fingere (“to touch, handle, form, shape, frame, form in thought, imagine, conceive, contrive, devise, feign”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- (“to mold”). Cognate with feign and fiction and more distantly dough.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after faint