dissimulate
/dɪˈsɪmjʊˌleɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.05 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To practise deception by concealment or omission, or by feigning a false appearance; to dissemble.
Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "But now, as he paced alone in his apartment, now that he was not upon exhibition, now when there was no eye to behold him, and there was no reason to dissimulate or veil a single thought or feeling, his look was anything but open; the last trace of frankness disappeared; the muscles at mouth and eyes shifted; lines and planes intermingled and altered subtly; there was a moment of misty transformation – and the face of another man emerged. It was the face of a man uninstructed in mercy; it was a shrewd and planning face: alert, resourceful, elaborately perceptive, and flawlessly hard."
- "[P]ublic feeling required the meagreness of nature to be dissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows."
- "That al thyng be forgiven to theim that be olde and broken, and to theim that be yonge and lusty to dissimulate for a time, and nothyng to be forgiuen to very yong children."
- "Where they may win ought : by fayre diſimilate ſhow, There they flickar, and flatter, in fauer to grow."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English dissimulaten, dissimilaten, from Latin dissimulātus + -en (“verb-forming suffix”), perfect passive participle of dissimulō (“to conceal, to pretend, to neglect”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from dissimilis (“unlike”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Compare the obsolete dissimule (“to conceal, disguise”), from Old French dissimuler (French dissimuler), ultimately from the same Latin root. Doublet of dissemble, dissimilate, and dissimule.