feint
/feɪnt/
"feint" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“feint” is an uncommon English word, ranked #51,701 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #51,701
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A movement made to confuse an opponent; a dummy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | feint |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /feɪnt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #51,701 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “feint” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for feint is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /feɪnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #51,701 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
feint doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is borrowed from French feinte (“dummy, feint”), from feindre (“to fake, feign”), from Old French feindre, faindre, from Latin fingere, the present active infinitive of fingō (“to alter the truth to deceive, dissemble, feign, pretend; to fashion, f… The correct English form is feint, spelled F-E-I-N-T.
Definition
- 1A movement made to confuse an opponent; a dummy.
- 2A blow, thrust, or other offensive movement resembling an attack on some part of the body, intended to distract from a real attack on another part.
- 3Something feigned; a false or pretend appearance; a pretence or stratagem.
Etymology
The noun is borrowed from French feinte (“dummy, feint”), from feindre (“to fake, feign”), from Old French feindre, faindre, from Latin fingere, the present active infinitive of fingō (“to alter the truth to deceive, dissemble, feign, pretend; to fashion, form, shape”). The verb is derived from the noun. Cognates * Italian finta * Occitan fencha, fenha * Old Spanish finta (modern Spanish finta (“dummy, feint”))
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “feint”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-E-I-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /feɪnt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.